Merry Christmas from all of us at Human Art!
Each week of this December we have been highlighting a different Christmas song. It has brought an added measure of the Christmas spirit around here. Because we picked a song to focus on each week, it created an environment where the words of the song were on all our minds as we went about our work week. More importantly, we found ourselves talking about the songs with each other. These were not planned conversations, they just happened here and there, spontaneous exchanges of what each person saw in the meaning or words of the song we had selected.
This week was no exception, but for me the words rang quietly yet still powerfully in my mind leading up to Christmas day. “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” Such a beautiful song. A wish of sorts, “Peace on earth.” We would all love that but it’s really such a big order. How could one person like me even begin to contribute to an overall effect of “Peace on earth”? Some days I would wonder if it was just a cliché, other days I would really have a desire to make a difference—but how? Then I thought about the rest of the phrase “and let it begin with me.” Could I really, as one person, make a difference when it came to peace on earth? Could it really begin with me or you?
I know that I have definitely tried. I seriously have no idea how much of a difference I have made as I travel around spreading the message of Human Art. I do not know if I have changed the life one person, many, or possibly none, but I know that it has changed mine. The people that I have met. The conversations that I have experienced, and the friends that are important to me have brought so much happiness into my life and I think in a small way that is a form of peace. It is from my point of view.
Anytime a conversation or interaction that is good or kind is taking place instead of something negative, I think that is a form of peace. I believe it has the potential to change the earth. Maybe not in a large way, but in a small space where that exchange is taking place at that moment. A mother that is calm instead of caught up in the stress of the season. Maybe someone at work that stops to listen instead of trying to get out the door quickly. How about a person in a long line being patient instead of aggravated at the length of the line and the time it is taking. Just being kind and serving however you can. Most importantly, just celebrating each person’s design or personality instead of fighting to be right.
Maybe that is what the song is singing out, maybe it is not one big act to create peace on earth but millions of little ones in tiny spaces. Maybe that is the very form of peace that it is referring to. What if that was the call to action? The notes seem to pause and beg for it and the words tell us what to do.
It’s Christmas: open presents, eat Christmas dinners, be with your family and friends, but where ever you are when you read this, pause in that space and create a little of that kind of peace, peace on earth… and let it begin with you. It will be worth it because everyone deserves peace, and everyone is a masterpiece.
Brook
