The text from a friend – a classmate – said that he wasn’t sending Christmas Cards but wanted to wish me peace and blessings at this special time. I called him back and asked if he was getting mean in his old age. I continued to joke with him for a little while and then he said, “you mustn’t have heard that my mother died”. I hadn’t. He went on to say she died at the beginning of December. He told me his mother had been diagnosed with cancer and died shortly after the diagnosis was given. Needless to say, I was sorry for him.
I told him I’d not heard and of course he knew that because, had I heard, I’d have been there for him over those December days. The reality was the news never reached my ears and I was sorry about that too.
As we enter the final days of Advent, maybe we could remember him and how easy it is not to hear news. Gossip is all around us and seems to blow easily on the wind – easily and dangerously – but often the news we need to hear passes by unheard or untold. I wondered does God feel that way sometimes, not least around Christmas and wonder how it is that this Story, this very sacred story, can remain unheard and untold.
It’s the choice of this Season in many ways; to hear and be shaped by the news or to settle for gossip. I know which we’re called to and I know how easily we can ignore or park that call. We need to be people of the Good News, tuned in to what is real and important in life, otherwise we miss opportunities to be better people, to be with people when they most need us.
Share the news. Avoid the gossip ….
A MOMENT TO PRAY
Lord,
We were never closer to news – internet, smartphones, 24 hour news channels, local radio and so many more outlets and yet we can miss what we most need to hear. Place in me a deep desire to keep in contact with people so that in their time of need, I may be there for them. Help me to avoid, at all costs, the terror that is gossip for it is amongst the most destructive of weapons and leaves scars that run deep into the soul and long into the memory. May my words, thoughts and actions be aligned with yours, that I might cause no deliberate hurt to another.
Amen.