December Fifteenth, If I Could Give a Gift

When the worries in our head stop. When the, ‘but what about’ grow still. When all the thoughts, and concerns over this or that or the other, cease. When our heart rate grows more steady. Our breathing grows more calm.When the madness of the world, the traffic, the radios, the shouts, become quiet. I would give that gift, silence.

We know, we can’t help but know, all of the noise going on around us. We can’t escape from any of it. The media, social networks, coworkers, family, the neighbor next door, are constantly bombarding us with this word or that of what is going on. The discussions never stop. We feel attacked from every angle, as we only seek to make our way through the day. 

News medias use what they have honed so well over time, the tactics of that sensationalist headline. What once was a snowstorm, has become a snowpocolips, a swarm of bees have become killer hornets, so much exaggeration. Then, when something big does happen, people tend to see it as all of the other exaggerations until it hits them. This many are going hungry, this many have no shelter, this many are sick, is always something out there somewhere, that may or may not be true. Then a family member or friend becomes a statistic and it becomes real.The noise of fear.

 Coworkers laugh over extreme measures taken for this or that, then suddenly become worked up over fear of job loss, when the signs appear. Talk in break rooms or around that famed water cooler can go from friendly, to anxious, to downright hostile in moments. The noise of anxiety. 

Neighbors, who were the best of friends yesterday, may have become estranged today because they cannot find a way to bridge differences. Neighbor A thinks everyone should be more understanding and set aside the doing of this or that. Neighbor B, is determined to continue enjoying life and while understanding the differences, believes they still should be allowed to go about living life. Neighbor B understands that some don’t believe as they do, that some don’t  have the where with all they do, that life isn’t fair. But that doesn’t mean they should stop living or doing just because. Take the light shows for example. People in a neighborhood received anonymous letters about their outside lights being unfair due to the fact some don’t celebrate Christmas and others don’t have the means to put up lights of their own. One person, trying to tell a neighborhood what they should or should not do-noise.

 Family noise is the worst because family is heart. When family have issues that cannot be overcome, the noise becomes deafening. No matter the cause, politics, world issues, racial issues, financial issues, the differences in personalities, it doesn’t matter. When the cracks in the family begin, and the noise starts seeping through, breaks may happen. The noise of the heart, becomes difficult to overcome.

 If I could give a gift, it would be silence of the noise.

A quiet, healing, silence. A deep, starlit night, where in a manger, a baby was wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger. A baby of whose arrival the angels announced. A baby, born to heal the wounds, to forgive, to love, to silence the noise of the world and bring peace.