editorial

An ordinary day, all lit up

Each morning this week I’ve begun the day by lighting up the house. First, I plug in the living room Christmas tree, then the little tree on the table. I fire up the strand of white lights over the mantel, then the blue ones in the sunroom. Then I sit for a few moments, just gazing, before the day begins.

I remember, as a child, doing exactly the same thing each Christmas, slipping into the still-dark living room to gaze at the blue lights on our tree as other family members scurried around upstairs. Those lights made everything magical. They still do. Gone is the dust under the sofa, the rip in the loveseat, the mismatched furniture. My small, scruffy home transforms into a vision of wonder.

It seems to me that Christmas is a bit like this, too. It’s an ordinary day, only all lit up.

I’m not sure quite why. I no longer hold the religious beliefs of my childhood. My own child has grown. Yet Christmas still holds the wonder of those past times. It holds the same comfort I felt as a girl in the warmth of my family, and the even-greater sweetness of seeing Christmas through the eyes of my stepdaughter and daughter, when they were small. And the day also holds the loss of those I once loved who are no longer with me, and the grief at the deaths of my father and mother. Christmas feels like all the joy and sorrow in my life so far, all squished together into 24 hours.

And the season is also lit up by how hard we try to be good. I believe most of us want to be good all the time, but sometimes we forget, or we get lost in our hurt and confusion. In this season of kindness, we can see how big we all are, and how big we can be.

I want every day to be lit up like this. Mostly, of course, they’re not. Sometimes I get glimpses of how it might be to live with such depth and richness of feeling — usually after sitting on a meditation pillow at the Dharma Center — and I try to hold on to those glimpses. Good Buddhists aren’t supposed to hold on, so perhaps that’s my problem. For whatever reason, that richness once again slips away beneath layers of mind chatter, deadlines and busyness. But I’m encouraged to glimpse it at all.

In this holiday season I wish for all of us days that light up with joy and wonder and sorrow as well. I wish us good company to share our laughter and tears. And I wish that I could learn to let go, not hold on, but I’m not expecting this anytime soon.

—Diane Chiddister