HOLIDAY REFLECTIONS

          During the holidays that proclaim “peace on earth and good will toward men”, it amazes me that many Americans, who abhor torture of enemy combatants, fully support drone strikes that kill innocents with impunity.  Dark deeds in dark places that include water boarding and forced rectal feeding do not provide acceptable Christmas visions.  On the other hand, surgical drone strikes that kill civilians are viewed as an extension of the Xbox video game from under the Christmas tree.

          We would all do well this holiday season to set aside some time for moral reflection, apart from our busy schedules and gift giving.  This process can start by each of us putting on the shoes of someone far, far away, or of a family next door, that is being adversely impacted by misplaced American policy or world events.  This exercise is not unlike the catharsis that Scrooge went through in A Christmas Carol. 

          Start with the orphaned little girl who lost her parents, mistakenly killed by a drone strike in Pakistan.  Or, the young African American college student who has been stopped frisked and humiliated by police, while walking through a white neighborhood on the way to class.  Consider the Latino family, living in fear of deportation, who desperately wants to begin living the American dream for their children.  Ponder the broken mental health system and the family you know with no resources and nowhere to go for help.  Place yourself in the position of a parent who lost a child in the Newtown shootings, which happened two years ago during the holidays. Try to imagine the small rural village in Liberia, where every family has lost someone to Ebola. Place in your mind’s eye, the almost two million Syrian refugees who on Christmas Eve will be trying to survive in Jordanian, Turkish and Lebanese refugee camps, after walking across the desert.

          None of us alone can save the world from immoral deeds, death or destruction. Together, each of us can choose a wrong and pledge to do our part to make it right in 2015.  This small but significant act of one, when multiplied by: “a thousand points of light across a broad and peaceful sky” would provide a vision of Christmas with which even the most ardent non religious humanist could agree.