PEACE AND JOY

     The one thing that is the major part of this Christmas celebration is Peace and Joy.  It is a wish and we can only make it happen in our own hearts.  As I write this I have just come from church and the Joy of the season seems to be tempered.  If there is one time of the year that we a vulnerable to the effects of evil it is during this season.  Yet it has to be joy in our hearts that shows it to others.
     It is particularly hard to be joyful right now and I do not know how anyone with no faith can handle what has gone on.  It is the faith that there is a higher power that is good and is wanting all his children to return home.  With out this rock to build on what can you use to center your world with reason and hope?
     Evil is a real presence in the world and you do not have to believe in God to recognise it.  The Sandy Hook attack broke our hearts and the country is flailing for answers.
     Now the firefighters in New York State have been set up for attack and two are gone and two are in critical condition.  There are two things that hit me hard and it is children and firefighters.  You have to be of that brotherhood to fully understand.
     How can we deal with the tearing of our hearts?  The only thing I know is to fill the hole in the heart with the faith that this will pass and there is strength in pulling together and putting trust in good.  If you don't the gap will be filled with bitterness and that is when we are most vulnerable to evil.
     Lashing out trying to do anything just to feel better is no solution.  So many will turn their pain outward and anything that makes them feel better will be the order of the day.  It is turning within ourselves that healing begins.
     I look to the joy of the season and find that many do not.  It has to be you and me that keep the simple trust in our hearts and hope that evil will be pushed aside.  In our society it is not popular to be a person of faith.  Yet we now see what having no faith has done to a society and a country who puts Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness as its foundation.  To turn from these principles allows the opposite to hold reign.
     As I gather with family and friends I will still mourn the evils that have befallen, us and take solace that there is still a higher power that wishes that we heal our hearts and rest our troubles on his shoulder.
     As we live through the troubled times that seem to be ahead let us all take the time to give thanks for the good and for the defeat of evil.  There is a line in a song that sums up what it takes to affect those around us, 'THEY WILL KNOW US BY OUR LOVE.'