One swan a-swimming on this seventh day of Christmas.
Happy almost new year, Reader!
Sure, there's more than one way to nail down when, exactly, the new year begins, what with the lunar new year vs. the Gregorian calendar vs. various other options to identify when the beginning begins.
But because the regular old, common people's calendar right now say JANUARY 1 tomorrow, beaucoups of us don't need any more reason than that to feel a glimmer of hope...
And frankly, a sigh of relief.
Whew.
We made it all the way to the end of the calendar year.
And now we're looking forward.
Which is one thing humans do really well—we look forward—and I'm all for it.
We hope against hope, day after day, year after year. And to me, this is a beautiful thing.
Bringing the holy days into the everyday
Last week I talked about you and me doing our holy-days best to bring the holy days into our everyday during the "twelve days of Christmas" (December 25th through January 6th).
Today is the seventh day of Christmas, the "seven swans a-swimming" day, and the magi are nearly in town to witness light-come-to-earth.
Meanwhile, you and I are doing our part to be light-come-to-earth on a daily basis.
It's a moment by moment thing, and we're on it.
But then...
I had a big fight with my sister yesterday.
She and I butt heads, but good, sometimes. She pushed my buttons, and I subsequently blew my top. I was furious.
By the afternoon we'd both cooled down. We apologized to each other for the blow up.
We acknowledged that we're trying to be on more or less the same page lo these sixty-something years into life, and that we both appreciate what the other is doing for our 87-year-old stepdad.
We'd talked earlier this week about how, if we could do it all again, we'd do some things differently with our dad and our mom, who've already made their departure from this realm.
I'm telling you, shiny Reader, life can get really, really poignant when you're down to one parent. But maybe you already know this, or something a lot like it.
But come the holidays, my schedule got crazy, and I got cranky.
It felt like my emotions and thoughts were in a sort of limbo, a state of in-between. I felt a lack of control and didn't like it. I'd all but abandoned our project.
Then, not all that quickly, mind you, I remembered the one rule:
So after a longer-than-anticipated period of getting way off-track, I'm picking up where I left off. I'm back to no-complaining-and-no-criticizing, one moment at a time, one day at a time.
Let's light things up
Next week, if not sooner, I'm sending you an opportunity to commit to longer than seven days of no-complaining-and-no-criticizing alongside me. Nothing is at stake, though. Let's just take this walk together.
Because there's not a doubt in my mind that little ol' you, plus little ol' me can make a positive impact on the world, starting right where we're standing. After all, if not us, who will do this for us?
Why wait for someone to do right by the world, when you and I can just start now?
If you and I aren't turning up the shine—and I mean this in a most serious way, not in a silly way—then we're basically letting the maniacs out there run the place. And we've seen enough of that to know it's not working.
So here we go, seven gorgeous swans a-swimming on the seventh day of Christmas, and into 2025, carrying our shiny ways forward.
And one little scrap of our shiny ways may not seem like much in the face of so, so much darkness in these times, but remember how little light it takes to disrupt darkness.
Consider how a sliver of light can light up a moonless night.
Happy first day of 2025 to you
May the hope you feel today and tomorrow on this edge of newness linger for much, much longer.
All the best to you as the calendar page turns to tomorrow, my friend...
Here's to you and me becoming who we want more of in the world,
