This morning as I was getting ready for work I was halfway watching a morning news show. Halfway watching, because it was really just background noise as I made coffee, unloaded the dishwasher and fixed a bowl of cereal. When I sat down with my Oatmeal Squares and my cup of hazelnut coffee, I started watching in earnest and I was filled with despair.
It was the Today show, which usually brightens the morning with a mixture of light news to temper the bad. It’s almost a television version of the radio show As It Happens that I wrote about last week.
However, this morning the Today show shared its annual news year-in-review as so many media outlets do this time of year. It was horrible, starting with a jarring video of the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January, covering the tragic earthquake in Nepal in April, the Syrian refugee crisis throughout the year, and ending with still more terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut in November. Of course it wasn’t just international bad news. There was the shooting in a church in Charleston in June and an apparent terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California this month. There were protests in the streets in Baltimore and Chicago and even Minneapolis.
Even in the News- Herald there is tragic news about the December 9 shooting fatality in Tofte.
Was there no good news in 2015?
I was feeling a bit blue, but then I got to work and started sorting through stories for the News-Herald this week.
I reviewed my little write-up of the Light up a Life event. It isn’t really a happy event, but it is uplifting. It is meaningful to hear so many familiar names. Although there are tears, there is laughter as well as stories are shared. It is a bittersweet, healing event.
And Light up a Life not only remembers beloved members of our community, it raises money for Care Partners of Cook County. Care Partners works to make things easier for those with chronic medical issues or those facing their final days. It helps bring peace to many in our community.
And the “Memory Tree”—the lovely green and white bedecked tree between World’s Best Donuts and Drury Lane Books—sends light out into the wintry darkness.
This week we also have pictures of not one, but two young ladies who became St. Lucia—the queen of lights—at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. Paige Everson was Lucia at Julefest on Saturday and Emma Gesch was Lucia during Sunday worship.
These lovely young women represent the kind Lucia of the Swedish folklore, who appeared during a famine and distributed food from a ship to the starving people on land. Garbed all in white, those she rescued saw a glow about young Lucia.
St. Lucia Day is celebrated in Scandinavian countries on December 13, the darkest day in the Swedish winter. To commemorate the saint’s actions, a young woman dons a gown of white and a crown of candles to share food and light. It’s a tradition that brings hope to a despairing world.
The Lucia celebration comes to Cook County in the dark of winter as well, bringing the promise of longer days after dreary winter months. It brings light and laughter to our community.
Thank you to the organizers of the Light up a Life event for brightening the dark winter and for bringing peace of mind to so many. Thank you to Paige and Emma for reminding us that darkness can be chased away.
Merry Christmas to all—may your holiday season be peaceful and full of light.
I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
Charles Dickens
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