December 31st has traditionally been a day for celebration and reflection. As we look back on a frau

December 31st has traditionally been a day for celebration and reflection. As we look back on a fraught year filled with political uncertainty, violence and natural disaster and that was hard on arguably everyone, my family and I are still contending with the debris of a year particularly marred by personal tragedy, loss and grief.This past Christmas, like every Yuletide, I attended church on Christmas Day, and the sermon coincidentally - and very aptly - dealt with the very subject of grief. How can we celebrate in spite of the darkness that surrounds us, close our eyes and ears to our own pained wailing that springs from the deep, empty expanse that the departure of a loved one, be they sudden or expected, leaves in our soul?  We can’t. And we shouldn’t. Because, as was said on that Christmas morning, when tragedy strikes, when indignities have to be swallowed, “a crack appears in one’s life.” A crack that, unlike a crack in a vase, can’t be mended or ignored. But rather than merely seeing an unsightly defacement, and rather than pretending it doesn’t exist at all, we have to accept that - even though I run the risk of descending into using the dullest of platitudes - it is part of who we are. Because through the cracks the light of life finds its way, and it is with even the faintest ray of light that hope, and the human spirit, is sustained. My life, as I’m sure every life does, has cracks in it. Some old, and some indelibly fresh. But through the cracks the light comes in. And that is all that matters. I hope that each and every one of us will be able to find, and be sustained by, their own sliver of light as we enter, and live through, the coming year. -- source link

More pics about