We Need Your Voice of Hope

What will you spread this holiday season?

Short and sweet.

What are you delivering this year? What are your gifts?

Will you offer a kind perspective? Conscious observation?

Tolerance?

Humor?

Or hate?

A little while ago I made a statement about hate speech based on an article I saw on Medium.

In a nation where we are already hurting so very much, I struggle to understand how layering more hurt on top of each other is any kind of way to go. It was deeply painful to read that article and consider how much pain it visited on so many others to read it.

Each of us can heal hundreds of thousands of people with our words.

Yes. You and I can. And while that might not get us the eyeballs that outrage can, we might not be able to bank as much on healing as we can on hurting…look.

This holiday season, especially after such a difficult year that has no end in sight, may I please ask that we all consider, especially as we inch through this election week, how we plan to move through this year’s holiday season.

Let’s please fill each other’s collective socks chock-full of forgiveness. Whether you turn to friends or faith to find solace, please do that before you sit down at your keyboard. We need each other very much right now. It’s going to be tough enough with Covid on the rise. Far too many of us will see fewer beloved people at our annual celebrations.

That’s enough pain.

What will your words do to or for so many for whom this coming season will carry reminders of terrible loss?

However the election results pan out, whatever happens in the ensuing weeks, we will be entering winter in the northern Hemisphere.

Will you spread cheer or fear?

Your words carry tremendous power. Likely beyond anything you currently realize. You and I have a Goddess within. You can use Her for good and grace, or for grandiosity and greed.

I hope you choose wisely. For my part, I want to read what you’ve learned, how you’ve grown through loss. How you plan to move forward with courage. How you plan to support and love others as we dearly hope to rebuild and redirect after this seminal time. And it’s hardly over. There is much to be done, but first we need to start healing.

I want to know how you’ve risen. Because your words can uplift me, as well as thousands of others. As I always have, I will elevate the best of what I read so that others can also be uplifted as your words have graced me. That’s how I plan to spread cheer.

Those would be the gifts I want from Medium writers for my holiday season, whatever holiday speaks for you.