How do you spell ‘compassion’?

It’s Sunday. In two day it will be Christmas. It’s on a Tuesday this year. I have lived 3,484 Tuesdays and celebrated sixty-six Christmases. Thirteen days ago was the last day of Hanukkah. I have never celebrated Hanukkah but who isn’t drawn to a festival of light in this deep mid-winter that our country and our world finds itself in? Twenty-eight days ago Diwali was celebrated. It’s another festival of light, another longing insistence to see what is to be seen, to uplift the aching good in us and drive away all that is dark. Kwanzaa begins in three days. Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent in the Christian Church. I will be lighting the candle of “compassion.” Now there’s something we can all hold up to the light to see what is to be seen. It doesn’t need a date but it does need realization in the day, in our every day. Do I sound like a preacher? Well, I am, and I wish you a compassionate Hanukkah, Christmas, Diwali, Kwanzaa and Advent. I wish us all light.