Making meaning

I’m sorry, that’s just too high a bar. (Nova Scotia archives)

I am one lucky person.

I’ll tell you why: I have three nieces and six nephews. As if that weren’t enough, I have one more nephew due to arrive in March.

I say I’m lucky not only because I adore all of these little people and get to have relationships with them, but because this abundance of delight and love isn’t based on anything I did. I happen to have three siblings who each happen to have had multiple children. I did marry a man who also has three siblings, one of whom is responsible for two of our nephews, but that’s really just luck, too.

It could have gone just as easily the other way, I know — quiet holidays, a lot fewer snuggles.

And I know that, if things had gone a different way, I could have had a handful of children of my own by now.

I’m lucky to have the parents I do, still together after nearly fifty years. I’m lucky to have more aunts, uncles than cousins than I can even count.

My grandparents, on the other hand, were all gone by the time I was thirty. Unlucky? Or lucky to have known them at all?

Throughout the year, you hear people casually mention that family is the most important thing — that family is what life is all about. At this time of year, that rhetoric is stepped up.

But not everyone is lucky enough to have a family — let alone a loving one. As much as I love my family and feel a deep gratitude for their existence, I am convinced that family is not what life is all about.

We can’t control what family we were born into, and we can’t necessarily control whether we are able to start a family of our own. There must be other ways to make meaning out of our lives that aren’t dependent on winning the lottery.

I have come up with two. First, if we care to, there’s our relationship with God or whatever divine presence we believe in. The heart of reality, the collective wisdom of the universe, the oneness of all things — however we want to frame it, whatever we want to call it. This is unconditional, transcending our circumstances and choices.

The second is the feeling of being deeply engaged in whatever you’re doing, whether it’s meditating, making a meal, solving a problem, walking in the woods, petting a cat, or having a conversation. That feeling, though we might have to seek it out and learn to cultivate it, is not down to luck. We can access it anytime.

Many people will be lonely in this holiday season. They don’t have warm, loving family relationships to count on. Therefore, Christmas can’t be about family, even though that is a common message.

Christmas is about celebrating the appearance of a divine messenger on the earth. Or maybe it’s about the appropriation of pagan customs related to the solstice. Or maybe it’s about crass consumerism and hokey stories about magic.

Whatever you believe in or celebrate, my wish for you this month (and for all time) is to find an activity that you can get deeply engaged in — something so that allows you to forget time and forget your pain, even briefly.

Your chosen activity may well be communing with loved ones around a Christmas tree or a delicious meal. However, that may not be possible or desirable. That’s okay.

There’s a whole world out there that doesn’t celebrate Christmas or put any pressure or expectations around this time of year. You can participate in that. You can do anything you want in order to make you feel like life is a compelling book whose pages you are eager to turn. Whatever it takes.

For those who are lonely, grieving, or otherwise struggling, my heart goes out to you. Be gentle with yourself and hang in there.

Family? That’s luck. If you are so blessed, that’s wonderful. But if you are not, you are not missing out. You have everything you need, at this time of year and any other. I hope you can find something to absorb your attention that helps you to feel better. I’m sending you love and light.