A chance for change

Usually, in this space at this time of year, we’d be suggesting that it was a time for us all to finally slow down and count our blessings. To get ready to enjoy the short Christmas break with family and friends, to reach out to those who are less fortunate — or more lonely — among us. To slow the pace and rest our tired feet, or to rejuvenate through revelry.

But this year, those blessings might be different, and the counting of them might be a little different, too.

It’s been an unfortunately difficult and different year, and this Christmas will likely share in that: there will be people we won’t be able to see, parties that won’t be held, friendships we won’t be able to enjoy. So, while there are certainly still things in our lives to be thankful for, this might be the kind of Christmas season where what’s important is hope — and to think about what may possibly be to come, once COVID-19 is finally under control.

As we live in what are, for now, smaller, more confined worlds, it’s worth remembering that horizons will open up, and we’ll have a clear opportunity.

A sudden, massive change is like a sort of punctuation: starting a new sentence, we have new opportunities and a new outlook on life and what’s important in it. A New Year — and yes, there’s obviously one close at hand — is often an opportunity to make personal changes. A new POST-COVID-19 era?

We might all have a particular clear chance to take a new outlook on the world and our places in it. To shape what we want a new world to be like.

Here’s a thought to perhaps jumpstart thinking about that opportunity, courtesy of Florence Luscomb, who was a suffragist and an architect whose life spanned almost a century (1887 to 1985).

“The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the same economic situation, the same national background and education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives,” she said.

If you’re nodding your head now, but also feeling powerless, well, Luscomb has a few words for that, too.

“There is nothing in the world that is so transitory and fragile as a snowflake, and there is nothing so irresistible as an avalanche, which is simply millions of snowflakes. So that if each one of us, little snowflakes, just does our part, we will be an irresistible force.”

For now, slow down, enjoy, be grateful for what is at hand.

Soon, there will be new work to be done. Saltwire Network