I wrote a Holy Days poem, back in 2008, which is, somehow, 16 years ago, now.

Times have, by many measures, grown darker.

Darkness is not driven out by wishful thinking, by hope alone. Progress, equality, hope, safety, love, and harmony are created by caring.

Jungles and forests and prairies and oceans and rivers, under threat. 70% of animals, gone. Insects, gone. Fireflies, gone!

White Christmases in NYC, Newark, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Baltimore, Richmond, Dover and other cities, gone. Fires in the winter, common.

Plastic consumption, normalized. Coffee for-here in a to-go plastic-lined paper cup, normalized.

A violent, insecure, lying conman and tyrant who’d like to gut sane immigration policy, healthcare, Social Security, ramp up already criminal economic inequality—where a dozen men own more wealth than half the nation. The Supreme Court killed affirmative action in colleges and new law students of color just dropped to 3%, a drop of 50%. War crimes abroad, and basic gay rights imperiled, daily. Rape and forced birth is a thing, a thing of violence supported by the state, in many states. Perhaps, soon, nationally. Climate crisis, finally confronted, is suddenly given new backing. Journalism, bled out…90% of what has risen is Big Tech-funded and -controlled.

And yet, and yet, and yet. That is our prayer, these holy-days.

For each threat, there are good souls, working and playing to bring new life and joy and health and safety and beauty, through caring. Through real action, not merely prayers or thoughts.

For you good souls, out there, remember you are in here. You are in this community—we are connected. You are not alone. You are not alone. What is, in fact, truly normal is caring, is kindness, is decency. We may be bent and twisted or warped by consumption and speed and isolation and bad examples…but pull close. Pull close to the hearth. Pull close in love, in strength, in kindness.

Harmony is normal. It is how things work, how things flow, how things birth, and grow and age and pass away.

Hate is a wound in need of healing. It brings heat, which may be mistaken for cheer or excitement to fill a nervous heart…but it only wounds further.

Let us invest in one another—that, not arming ourselves, is the only true safety we have in a society. Even if we live far off, in the woods or desert or on an island..we depend on one another. So: let us invest in compassion—that, not conspiracy theories or wasteful selfishness or prejudice, is the only happiness available to any of us.

Let us invest in real love…the stuff of earth and wind and holly and repair—not the stuff of Hallmark clichés, saccharine othering, or circumscribed tribal affection…these Holydays.

Let these Holy Days remind us that, at this ever-unfolding fork in the road of this planet’s history, we have a path to take.

And we have a choice to make.