Peace on Earth and goodwill to all — that is what is written on my Christmas cards to send to family and friends this year. No matter what faith they may be, this card would work for all of them.
It’s a lovely card with a picture of a snow globe labeled Peace on Earth. Inside the snow globe appears to be a small New England village. Quaint, but so telling the way it seems to be tucked inside its plastic or glass dome encasement so as to protect its very nature and perhaps its lack of reality.
Peace on Earth — what a concept. I still have my pendant from the 1960s that says, “War is not healthy for children and other living things,” which was the slogan for Another Mother for Peace. I treasured that pendant and never parted with it. I wore it around my neck when I was a single woman of 18. I didn’t become a mother until I was 28, which in the 1970s was kind of old to have a baby. That baby was my oldest son, and my feelings about Peace on Earth have changed little.
When I think of my life and the lives of my children in our safe country, compared to moms and dads who are trudging with their children through war-torn zones with crossfire, grenades, and bombs, hoping to find food, shelter, diapers, medical care, and safety, my life seems inconsequential.
Here we are, a large nation of consumers who can click, shop and tweet at a moment’s notice that seem to have it all compared to so many other people struggling in the world to survive. Some of us tend to whine and complain when there is some major inconvenience, such as the internet going down or when we have a power outage, not giving much thought to those that live in countries around the world who do not share our modern conveniences and may not have electricity or access to clean water.
Had I been a mother in war-torn Aleppo or some other place, my guess is that I would be scrambling to get my family out of my crumbling city and its neighborhood without food and medical care. We would leave the comfort and security of our home because those two vital components would no longer exist in that space.
What is a displaced family? What is a family fleeing a country to find a safe haven for their children? All parents want their children to survive and thrive. Do many of us in the United States know what that is about? My hunch is that many of us do not. I don’t know. It has not been my life or the lives of my children. We have been fortunate and blessed in so many ways to have never had to experience this kind of tremendous stress and hardship.
Peace on Earth and goodwill to all. Can’t we hope that someday that imprint on a Christmas card won’t just be a dream, but a message for the world?
Lynn K. Cooper is a writer who lives in Westhampton.