In hearts and minds, a Silent Night with heavenly peace is more difficult to find during some Christmas seasons, even in a place so blessed as Platte County.
Bill Graham
Prosperity is seen in all corners thanks to fortunate positioning on a city’s edge with highways, an airport, and a rural countryside attracting economic growth. But the comfort and joy that ye merry gentlemen and gentlewomen seek over the holidays is pierced this year by news from Ukraine, by Democracy’s shaken foundations, and by the frightening prices for groceries.
Charles Dickens was so enduringly wise in A Christmas Carol to note that Christmas holidays are about the past, present, and future. They are always mixed in the minds of thinking and feeling people. They are why the holidays, no matter your creeds and beliefs, can be so powerful. Joy remembered, joy lived in these moments, joy hoped for in the future.
Hope for warmth and light in the darkest time of winter is part of Christmas. Then there’s the most important part, hope for spiritual light and love in a world beset by troubles. If you believe as Marley’s ghost did in Dickens tale, that mankind is our business, then it is impossible not to feel sadness for the bone-chilling cold in a home without electricity or water in war torn Ukraine this holiday week. Two kinds of darkness affect that country, no lights and no mercy from a delusional Russian tyrant.
Lest you think that those are only other nations’ problems, remember that the world’s economic issues are why young parents in Platte County are finding budget busting prices on the grocery store shelves and cost increases for everything that makes a household merry. Jobs are available but the gas to get to them cost more, and Platte County is mostly a car commuter county.
Yet there are always bright sides, light, to be found in the holidays.
We may get a traditional white Christmas this year. Snow is predicted this week, along with overnight temperatures that could dip to a Frosty-friendly minus-nine degrees. That’s right, -9. National Weather Service forecasters on Monday said it will warm up to -3 for Christmas Eve and 20 degrees on Christmas Day. Break out the ice skates, sleds, and snow tubes. Such cold makes the sound of a furnace kicking on a reassuring holiday blessing.
An opportunity to serve others is at hand. Angelic are the furnace repair experts, propane delivery drivers, and electric power technicians who will head out into the cold when needed, even on a holiday. People can brighten an elderly neighbor’s day by checking on their welfare. The soul warms when you drop a quarter, a dollar bill, or a check into a Salvation Army pot or the collection plate of a church or charity of your choice.
Embrace winter because it cleanses the woods and fields for the spring and summer growing seasons. Take a drive starting at about 4:30 p.m. along Missouri 45, Interstate 29, or Missouri 371. As you travel north or south, look west and see how the setting sun’s angles in late December create pretty winter sunsets. Walk in the woods, notice all the animal tracks in the snow and life ongoing in winter. Take a night stroll outdoors to experience the quiet and the stars. So real are the stars, the same ones shining down on Bethlehem 2022 years ago.
Create Peace on Earth the only way a humble Platte Countian can. Love your family. Call and text your friends for the holidays. Treat every person you encounter with respect and a smile. We’ll make it through these times, the whole world will eventually, and meanwhile we can bring light to our corner.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.