Grace Ross: A Just Wish for the Winter Holidays

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Grace Ross, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Left to my own devices, ever since I was a little girl I had one wish – for birthdays, on a shooting star, for all occasions – I wished that everyone had a safe place to lay their head under their own roof.

At this time of year, we traditionally wish each other “peace” in different tongues and in different ways.

Well before I knew Martin Luther King, Jr.’s wisdom, “Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice,” the blessing of peace for me included at least the justice of everyone having the basics of a safe place to lay their head.

Perhaps I was influenced by the image of a family shunned by almost everyone whose child had to be born in the only place they were allowed: a manger.

More likely, as a periodically abused child, I came to understand that justice – like injustice – is a series of small acts most of the time not one socially visible large act.

And each of us creates justice –

each time we refuse to let a child be bullied or outcast because they might in some way be different,
each time we interrupt ridicule or refuse to let someone be denied what everyone deserves simply for being alive,
when we knock on a door where we hear what might be domestic violence going on and, at least for that moment, interrupt and remind the possible victim they are not alone and the possible batterer that they are being watched,
each time we share at least a smile if not some spare change with a homeless person instead of ignoring their existence
each time we refuse to ignore what might be signs of sexual abuse of a child,
when we insist that girls be allowed to play too, etc.

In fact, any time we remember the fundamentals of a beloved community in which not only is everyone valued and included but that we are in fact each other’s keeper and we must be prepared to depend upon each other when the going gets tough – and, at some point, it always does.

Whether it is the lesson of the loaves and fishes or the oil for the temple candles to burn longer than anyone thought possible, the stories of these miracles always start with everyone pooling all they have for the benefit of the community – because then there is almost unfailingly enough.

I know one is supposed to keep wishes to oneself so that they might come true. And, in this day where we hide our anger and disappointment at the rampant greed and egomania of those who pass themselves off as leaders these days under the mantle of jaded wisdom and apathy, it is easier for me, like others, not to say that my greatest wish is the outcome of shared generosity.

But I believe that is still the society we all yearn for – and at times historically, we have been closer to than today.