Author's Afterword: These are, in many ways, difficult and alienating times. In spite of remarkable advances in technology, we seem to have regressed personally. We have lost our ties with eachother, abandoned ourways of being family that truly meant something. This has careated a sad and empty place inside many of us, a void that needs filling. What do we do about it?
I believe we need to intentionally re-create ourselves as family, replacing all the richness and comfort we seem to have lost with ways that fit and make sense to us as we live now. Our lives are vastly differnet from the way they used to be, but many of our needs remain the same: to belong; tobe comforted; to express and receive love; to have some sense of stability, especially emotional. When we celebrate and create traditions together as families, we are doing all that -and more. We are providing ourselves with a kind of shared spirituality.
It might feel funny at first to try to make changes in your family life. Trying new things can make anyone feel a little uncomfortable. But it's worth the awkwardness, worth the investment. Because it works. When you learn to come together in joy and with regularity, to give and receive from each other, you not only meet immmediate needs but go on to tend to vital palces in the heart for the rest of your life. And there's a bonus: When you have that kind of contentment in your family life, it's easier for you to go forth and be a better person to others you meet. Perhaps the way toward a saner and more compassionate world has less to do with whom we elect than with what we do in our own families, in our own living rooms.
I once received a letter from someone who told me about a tiem he went for a long walk with the family. His three-year-old daughter was beginning to tire seriously, and he asked if she wanted him to carry her. She looked at the setting sun, sighed, and said, "No, thanks. Every time I see a pink sky, I don't feel tired." I believe traditions and celebratrions are a kind of pink sky. They renew me; they put somethin I need in place; and when I am enjoying them, I don't feel tired, either.
We can all be inspired to make our lives within our families full of fun and meaning and an essential kind of energy. And it can happen not only on special days like holidays but also on the regular days, those marching Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays that make up the bulk of our time spent here on this planet.
Life is for nothing if not for the celebratring. And if celebrating is shouting our joy from the rooftops, traditions are the houses we stand on to do it. It is never too early--or too late--to start having both firmly fixed in our lives.