"Give peace, O Lord, in all the world, for only in thee can we live in safety." *

Somewhat like giving a donation to buy a goat for an impoverished family in Africa or a water buffalo to a Filipino family (instead of yet another pair of gloves to Grandma or the new John Grisham novel to Uncle Max (Kidding! I have never in my life - nor do I intend to start now - given a John Grisham novel to anyone), this year I give all of you an intangible (and admittedly, not really-real-at-all) Christmas gift: peace.

Perhaps more accurately, I should term it a WISH for peace.

Peace in all the parts of the world in conflict: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Darfur region of Sudan, Burma, Pakistan, Somalia, Colombia…sadly, the list can go on and on.

And that doesn’t even include the need for peace in my own country; the need for peace and love and tolerance, instead of fear and hatred and violence against those different and poor and disenfranchised and in need of a helping hand.

I could go on and on, with a laundry list of values and attributes we all need to develop and demonstrate every day, in hopes of making at least our little part of the world a better place, but instead I leave you with a wish for a wonderful Christmas, and St Francis’s wise words which inspire me every day to at least TRY to be a better person:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


Merry Christmas, and peace to you all, my dear Internet friends.

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* Book of Common Prayer, The Episcopal Church