While the holidays are filled with the usual jolly and merry making (tinsel, baking, lights, malls?!?) for me, Christmas is also about making peace with the invariable craziness that occured throughout the year. I've been reading The Prophet and found a passage that I particularily found enlightening on the merits of forgiveness through understanding trespasses:
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the hightest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who, though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
I wish peace and joy to you all.
Posted by Georgi at December 22, 2005 06:33 PM