The holiday season is over for anyone
not celebrating the Epiphany, but while the festive spirit fades, a
chill wind blows outside.
Though modern humanity longer
experiences weather with quite the same ferocity as our ancestors,
the brutal cold evokes a remembrance of societal solidarity. Of
huddling together for comfort, for survival, wishing and dreaming of
an end to the darkness, and a burst of light. Though we no longer
stand transfixed by the magical falsehoods imposed on us by our
elders, having outgrown fantasies in adolescence, hopefully we
haven't abandoned certain truths and ideals from which these fictions
draw their strength.
Having retreated from each other over
the past year, decade, and century, and not looking to fix the blame
on any particular source, we should strive for a re-connection with
our local and universal kin.
Almost every ethical system, from the
Ancient Greeks, to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism,
Taoism, Islam (and many more unrecognized) have expounded on the
values of generosity, charity, and hospitality. Today, as malignant
forces worldwide seek to divide, dehumanize, and denigrate, humanity
must seek to draw ever closer together in fellowship, with an
outstretched hand to a person in need, or an unknown stranger. Reach
out with an unexpected invitation, casting aside concern over his
political affiliation, or her religious tradition.
With the inhospitable weather, it's the
season to invite society's less favored into life, community, and
home. Draw those with and without family into personal celebrations
and form new connections with those who seem alien and those who
suffer.
In this citizens are called not to
institute a compassion measured by an issuance of cash, but of a
warmth in personal charity which overcomes the winter weather.
Serving others is more admirable, and rewarding for both
participants, than a deluge of donations.
There are those today, who speak of
their own personal moral excellence, of the supremacy of their
compassion, wielding power across the world, who prefer humanity's
subdivisions, seclusions, and contempt for those unlike ourselves.
They'd balk at offering their roof to those most in need, those
different in particulars, but the same in essential core.
In this season, and for all the year,
there are none who suffer more than the denigrated, the dispossessed,
and the convicted seeking redemption. In an effort to express our
kinship and to offer comfort, let us open ourselves to them, and
offer without being asked.
And while the man in the red, the
reindeer, and the tree are wondrous fictions, let us not be confused
into setting aside those truths from which they share a source. That
we can, through generosity, compassion, charity, and hospitality,
ennoble the lives of those around us, buttressing our communities and
lives with meaning beyond basic economic and political values.
The Ancient Greeks believed hospitality
essential because any guest might be a god in disguise. Let humanity
seek to greet the guest, not because they are superior, but because
they are of the same essence, a wondrous creature capable of great
joy and unendurable suffering.
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