Published December 2024:

The days are growing shorter and the nights growing longer. You know the drill! We’ll get through this, and that’s one reason the Winter Solstice has been celebrated around the globe for thousands of years. The night grows long, but just as the sun also rises, the days will grow longer again. The light always prevails again.

And in these trying times, it’s easy to forget this. It’s easy to succumb to gloom and doom. But it’s not easy in the long run, and it’s surely not the only choice we have. As Sojourner Truth, a former slave and eventual abolitionist and women’s rights advocate stated, “I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.”*

In a town that had been ravaged by a flood, a sign was posted that read: “Help wanted – must be able to swim.” If we cannot help ourselves, we cannot help anyone else. We must stay afloat! We must stay buoyant. A familiar proverb in the Bible says: “A merry heart does good, like medicine…” What is less familiar are the words that follow:

“but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”

In short, either we keep a spirit of joy or we develop osteoporosis! Either we stay strong and keep our hearts open and joyful, or we become fragile, brittle and then break.

Let’s celebrate and be merry this holiday season. Let’s keep it going for a wonderful new year, too!

Namaste

*Sojourner Truth was an African American woman who was born into slavery in 1797. She was cruelly treated and beaten for 30 years. Her children were taken away from her, sold as slaves. When she finally broke free, she experienced a religious conversion and became an itinerant preacher. That’s when she changed her name from Isabella to Sojourner Truth. Though unschooled, she was an impressive speaker. And she played an important role in the Civil War that greatly helped the North. She was invited to meet Abraham Lincoln.