Dark December’s Peace
Welcome to the Time of the Dark
When we seek to empty our minds
Of Life’s busyness and the dazzle that
Leave little room for introspection.
Welcome to this Month of Silence
And Expansive Skies filled with Stars.
Welcome to cold Winter Silence that you
Somehow suspect could be filled with
A host of Angels, promising that
We can be better than we are. In
Those short Daylight hours you may
Encounter out-of-season Doves carrying
Laurels, carrying Hearts, carrying Peace.
You and I with all our Neighbors, making Peace.
Unlike many folk, I am very excited about December, not because of the coming holidays, but because it’s the darkest month of the year. I find the long, luxurious starlit nights so Beautiful. I don’t love driving in snow; I do welcome its soft, silent falling. I cherish candlelight, firelight, hot drinks with friends, and every single one of December’s holidays’ foods. December is a great argument for having a wide variety of multicultural friends. Hi! Can I come to your house for warm and wonderful food?
Nope, no longing for the Dark to disappear for me! I want to luxuriate in time spent with loved ones, trading family stories, forgetting phones to watch a movie together, or simply reading in tandem with everyone else in the room. What do you long for?
To be clear, waxing dreamily about the Beauty, doesn’t allow me to forget our Valley’s food insecurity. Food cupboards are running low. Utility prices are high and people are having to choose between rent, healthcare, and food. During these times, I ask how can we ease our neighbor’s burden? Thursday before Thanksgiving, we had the Takery. There was turkey dinner for all with staples and delicacies to take home. All over the valley, people and communities are doing their part. Thank you!
In December, we long for warmth, a full table, freedom from economic worry. Let’s donate food, find a local pantry, share resources. Let’s explore through our closets for surplus winter clothes. Celebrate smaller holidays so that others may have holidays as well. Donate to groups helping to pay off hospital bills, or to places offering undergarments, diapers, menstrual products or dental and hygiene products. Some religious traditions include a Passing of the Peace in their services and you greet your neighbors. Extend that Peace by providing sustenance or comfort. Make Peace concrete in this world and in your traditions.
Would you celebrate December with me? I’ve be working to discern what Peace the world longs for, celebrating that rather than holidays. The only actual “official holiday” on December’s holiday list is December Fourth, National Cookie Day. What’s a holiday without a cookie? Sitting around a fire or stomping through the woods, what snack could be more winter appropriate or delightful? What better way to share and pass Peace than with a snickerdoodle warm from the oven. When you’re on a hike, bring some along to munch on with your tea or coffee!
Consider how your experience of December might change if viewed through the lens of Hearts full of Peace, symbolized by Hearts and Peace Doves. To celebrate, all you need to do is cut out 31 hearts and 31 peace doves. Navigate over to my website during December or sign up there to have the musings delivered to your in-box. Each day a new poem about that day’s Peace — symbolized by a Heart and Dove. Find a tree — inside or outside — and daily add another Peace Heart and Dove to your Holiday tree.
I’m using the beautiful remains of a red maple sapling that never took — but which was replanted from the house where I grew up. Now it’s finding new life as my Peace Tree. There will be a tree in the Community Zone in Lewisburg that will slowly transform into a Peace Tree. (If you do this, I’d love photo of your PeaceTree in Progress or PeaceTree Perfected! Send it to my email or Facebook.) If you want to see all my Daily Hearts full of Peace, visit my site. The poems will be there and you can receive them in a download.
Let’s honor this year’s ending with a month-long celebration of Winter Peace and Peace with our Neighbors — offering the world what it needs. You might be amazed at what a daily practice of Celebrating Peace brings to your life. I’ve been writing this column for 14 years now, and my life is so much richer for it. Thirty days is all it takes to start a new habit. If we made December 2025 a communal, familial, or individual celebration of Peace, by the end of it, we would be ready to call ourselves Peacemakers. We would be ready, all together, to commit, to making 2026 our chosen Year of Peace. And the year after that, and the year after that — and who knows? It might catch on in the World.
Day by day, let’s celebrate Peace together. I really hope that you will share with me the many ways you were inspired to express your understandings of Peace this December. May you be filled with Joy and Good Will.
What would it be like, if all over our Valley, our state, our country, and our world, people began to hang tiny little hearts with doves, each day for a month. What if we really considered what Peace means to us. That’s Peacemaking, my friend. Look at you go!
Salaam, Shalom, Peace, and Blessed Be!