My seasonal wish for my friends and for the world:
“May 2021 bring an intense desire in each person’s heart and a policy imperative on every governing table that the year will focus on the pursuit of good will.”
It sounds heady but without good will we have chaos and 2020 brought us as close to chaos as my stomach can tolerate.
I’ve always wanted something more for the season than Merry Christmas or even happy holidays. It’s not surprising. I am a 60s girl and we didn’t just want a good day or even a good season, we wanted bigger. Merry and happy are not enough, not when you are looking to change the world. Peace on earth was our banner mantra.
The trouble with Peace on Earth as a Christmas greeting is that the birth of Jesus didn’t bring it about as the angels predicted. In fact, the Bible itself says that Jesus would also bring conflict and even the sword, which history has liberally demonstrated.
On the other hand, even though the earth doesn’t look anything like the peace I dreamed of, we’ve made some successes since the 60s. Science Today says that humans are less likely to die in conflict today than 100 years ago (at least from a Eurocentric point of view). So Peace on Earth is still worth repeating over and over, year after year.
However I think the greeting “Peace on earth and good will towards man” is back to front. There must be good will first if we are going to have a hope of peace. The western world’s reduction of military conflicts may give us reason to celebrate but recently good will has suffered a full frontal attack. Even the simple instruction from our mothers “be nice to each other” has been replaced with “be nice to people like you” and, further, “be nice to people you like.”
The pursuit and defence of individual rights has trumped (pun intended) our intuitive sense that we are not islands. We are social creatures and need to have the necessary skills to work together. And that requires good will. Yet we are drawing lines around ourselves/our groups and retreating behind the chants, the hash tags, the memes that support our side. We strike out at others’ indiscretions with the venom and self -righteousness of our pitch-fork wielding, witch-hunting Puritanical or other intolerant ancestors. We have now given power to the crowd to determine who is and who isn’t okay. Kids at school know how that can hurt.
I see these characteristics in myself. My tolerance for arguments I disagree with is waning. I find myself resorting to judgemental conclusions like “that is simply ignorant” and “they must be completely stupid” way more than I would like. Watching the US presidential side-show leaves me with a profound sense of disorientation—humans are worse than I had ever imagined and I already had an ambivalent relationship with the masses.
So this season I’m pitching good will. I am concentrating on sharing, kindness, tolerance, gentleness, concern, compassion, humility… I’m breathing deeply, slowing down and taking time. I don’t need to understand you. I just want to acknowledge you as you are and extend to you good will—that intangible thing that brings our lives, and could bring the earth, peace.