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Christmas - like all religious festivals – is a time for coming together. Sadly, far too often it is also a time when divisions become more clearly marked than ever. Where family and friends do come together, those who are and/or made to feel excluded can feel terribly alone and isolated. Birthdays, anniversaries, special moments we long to share with family and friends, these are times when not being able to share them, for whatever reason, can make us feel physically sick with the intensity of exclusion.
It is not only gay people, of course, who are often made to feel excluded because they haven’t lived up to the expectations of others but made their own way in life. It is high time some people realised that, much as we may want the best for family and friends, we have no right to tell them how to live their lives; we should respect the decisions they make instead of harping on about how they could and should have done things differently. Nor is turning to socio-cultural-religious traditions any excuse for making people feel guilty about how they choose to live their lives...or rejecting them for it. [Multicultural societies will never work well until more of its leading lights get real and bring their followers into the 21st century.]
Let those of us who fare better, wish all those who are alone and unhappy a peaceful time over this period of Christmas, and always. Peace of mind may be elusive but it is there if we look hard enough; it involves keeping faith with ourselves as well as if not more than with each other. Gay, or straight, male or female, we all need to believe in ourselves and can but trust others will come to believe in us too, albeit it may take time for some to accept us for who and what we are.
Me? I’ve been on my own on Christmas Day for years now and love it. I can do exactly as I please, which usually includes over-eating (especially chocolates and other goodies I deny myself all year) as well as mulling very self-indulgently over Christmases past (some wonderful, some awful) and be glad that close friends will be around for (hopefully) years to come.
At the end of the day, there are always loved ones to keep us company, whether or not they are still with us. whenever we feel lonely or unhappy. for any reason; there is always much comfort to be found among our kinder ghosts.
This poem is a villanelle.
NEVER ALONE AT CHRISTMAS
Alone at Christmas, yet never alone
(memories flooding mind and heart)
among flowers of a peace full grown
For errors made, we can but atone
(join a common humanity for a start)
alone at Christmas, yet never alone
May the world look past a tombstone
(in whose design we played our part)
among flowers of a peace full grown
Recalling wise words written in stone
(keeps us close, though made to part)
alone at Christmas, yet never alone
Live by the Poetry of Kindness shown,
and to others, its words impart…
among flowers of a peace full grown
Though time, like a bird, quickly flown,
hear its love songs as swiftly return;
alone at Christmas, yet never alone...
among flowers of a peace full grown
Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2018
Christmas - like all religious festivals – is a time for coming together. Sadly, far too often it is also a time when divisions become more clearly marked than ever. Where family and friends do come together, those who are and/or made to feel excluded can feel terribly alone and isolated. Birthdays, anniversaries, special moments we long to share with family and friends, these are times when not being able to share them, for whatever reason, can make us feel physically sick with the intensity of exclusion.
It is not only gay people, of course, who are often made to feel excluded because they haven’t lived up to the expectations of others but made their own way in life. It is high time some people realised that, much as we may want the best for family and friends, we have no right to tell them how to live their lives; we should respect the decisions they make instead of harping on about how they could and should have done things differently. Nor is turning to socio-cultural-religious traditions any excuse for making people feel guilty about how they choose to live their lives...or rejecting them for it. [Multicultural societies will never work well until more of its leading lights get real and bring their followers into the 21st century.]
Let those of us who fare better, wish all those who are alone and unhappy a peaceful time over this period of Christmas, and always. Peace of mind may be elusive but it is there if we look hard enough; it involves keeping faith with ourselves as well as if not more than with each other. Gay, or straight, male or female, we all need to believe in ourselves and can but trust others will come to believe in us too, albeit it may take time for some to accept us for who and what we are.
Me? I’ve been on my own on Christmas Day for years now and love it. I can do exactly as I please, which usually includes over-eating (especially chocolates and other goodies I deny myself all year) as well as mulling very self-indulgently over Christmases past (some wonderful, some awful) and be glad that close friends will be around for (hopefully) years to come.
At the end of the day, there are always loved ones to keep us company, whether or not they are still with us. whenever we feel lonely or unhappy. for any reason; there is always much comfort to be found among our kinder ghosts.
This poem is a villanelle.
NEVER ALONE AT CHRISTMAS
Alone at Christmas, yet never alone
(memories flooding mind and heart)
among flowers of a peace full grown
For errors made, we can but atone
(join a common humanity for a start)
alone at Christmas, yet never alone
May the world look past a tombstone
(in whose design we played our part)
among flowers of a peace full grown
Recalling wise words written in stone
(keeps us close, though made to part)
alone at Christmas, yet never alone
Live by the Poetry of Kindness shown,
and to others, its words impart…
among flowers of a peace full grown
Though time, like a bird, quickly flown,
hear its love songs as swiftly return;
alone at Christmas, yet never alone...
among flowers of a peace full grown
Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2018
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