This Holiday, I Wish For Peace and Listening Both Big and Small

I walk outside, and sit on my porch. I look to the sky, inhale, and feel peace. My son is quietly sleeping upstairs,* my husband is reading, and I am here, in this gigantic world.

We are here. Almost together. Together.

I hear cars drive by, wonder about them, and know that some cars contain people crying, worrying, wondering, and praying.

I feel peace.

Except for when I don’t.

Sometimes, often maybe, I am the crying, worrying, wondering, and praying person. In my car, or on my porch.

Tonight, I look up at the sky, feel thankful that today was a warm December one. Thankful that when I quizzed my son on his spelling words for tomorrow, he got them all correct. A first. Peace. Homework done with less struggle. 

I exhale.

*

The expression “I wish for world peace” has become a joke. I guess it stemmed from too many Miss America pageant contestants saying so, or, maybe it became a joke because it’s cliche — after all, who doesn’t wish for world peace?

I do. I assume that you do. That we all wish for empathy and wonder. 

However, many people don’t wish for world peace, because they need to see actual change. And sadly, change rarely comes through peace and the wishing for it. I relate to that as well. In looking at advocacy for special needs, so much of it is accomplished through struggle and strife.

My son found grace in kindergarten in part because at our IEP transition meeting, I questioned everything. Which was mostly peaceful but not agreeing. Which is not peace the way that we imagine it to be, not really.

*

True peace is born from for-real listening. Today, at a work meeting, I realized that we all want the same things for our company. But some people talk and some worry and some say nothing and some try to not cry.

Maybe, that’s the way of the world. Maybe, we all just want what we want, and we want others to hear us. To know us, and to understand what we want. None listen enough; none listened to enough.

Because I think that we don’t listen enough,  

This Holiday, I Wish For Peace and Listening Both Big and Small

This holiday, I want to talk to my son about the world, in a six-year-old appropriate way. I want to answer his questions, and I want peace, both big and small.

“Why did you turn off the TV when I came downstairs?”

I want peace for the world, and peace for him. I want to listen, and I want him to hear. I don’t want to have to turn off the TV when he comes into the room.

I also want him to know the world. Big, and small.

I want him to know that each of us hope for More and that where we’re born and what we’re taught matters.
This holiday, I want to become a better listener. I wish for peace in this home, in my son’s heart and in mine, and in the hearts of all mankind, although I know that’s going to take more than wishing for it. 

This holiday, I hope to begin to answer my son’s questions, even when I don’t know the answers. This holiday, I hope to become a listener.

I hope to answer with grace.

“Why did God make us?”

“How come Billy is mean to me?”

“How come Billy has 100 pets and I only have one?”

“What is disappointed?”

He asks me what a soul is. He asks me why some boys push him on the bus and are mean.

I answer, the best that I can, and I hope that this holiday, that we can find a bridge towards peace in this world. That we can all become listeners.

That we can listen to the world’s plights, and listen, hear, and realize that we’re all more alike than different.

That peace will come as it can, and that we’ll work towards it. All of us. Because really, that’s so much better than crying in our cars, although crying in our cars is okay, when we’re really listening to others and to ourselves.

***

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. The topic is “This holiday season, I hope…”
Your hosts are me (Findingninee.com) and
Lisa from The Golden Spoons

*my son is not sleeping, and my husband is not reading…they just called me so that my son could tell me that bedtime would be better if I were tickling his back — which is annoying, but I’m trying to be a better listener, at least over the holidays 😉