Christmastide Day 4: December 28th
Living in a New Way

Life presents ongoing choices. Will I complain about my fate or dig deep for the larger meaning of things? Will I love freely in spite of the risks? Will I accept the comfortable and familiar or will I challenge myself to grow? In spite of what I tell myself, I always know with each choice that I could live a different way.

When I visited the Freedom Museum in Cincinnati, I planned to walk through leisurely and enjoy the exhibits. I expected to learn a little history and possibly buy a book from the gift store. But I was blindsided by what I experienced there. A young, passionate docent gave a stirring speech about what had happened to his people because of slavery. He pled with the audience, most of them young students, to allow this shared history to deeply inform them. Don't look away, he begged. Look right into the heart of this. See the worst a human being is capable of, and the highest. And know the potential for hatred and the potential for love are both within us. Then decide.

I'd been planning to spend the evening with the new friend who'd brought me to the museum, but after that talk we both demurred. Otherwise, I was afraid the docent's words would fade too quickly, and I might run from the very truth that was trying to open my eyes.

I could live differently.


by Paula D'Arcy, Redbird Foundation
from the book: Daybreaks