The Power of Love: Holiday Peace
by Joanne Steenberg, Penobscot, ME
Well, I am sure there is one thing we all want more than anything this time of the year, — no matter how or what you celebrate—and that is PEACE. Peace in our hearts, peace in our families, peace in our communities and peace in our world. It is our innate human nature to want to be at peace. It is my hope that for the 2024 holiday season there will be more expressions of love and peace than ever before.
One of the things that warms hearts in a big way is connecting with our elders. Just listening to their stories of holiday traditions from the past can really be an eye-opener. Why not ask an elder in your life what they remember—and then sit back and listen? It is so healthy for them to retell their stories and so enriching for us to learn from them.
For example, I asked my mom what she remembered from her childhood holidays. With tears in her eyes she said, “Oh I’ll never forget hearing from my parents the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914.” Do you know about it? It’s an incredibly moving story. I can’t even write about it without crying myself. In the early days of WWI, on a beautiful clear morning, thousands of British, German and French soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and spent Christmas connecting with their enemies along the Western Front. The event has been seen as a kind of miracle, a rare moment of peace just a few months into a war that would eventually claim over 15 million lives.
Most accounts remember that the truce began with carol singing from the trenches on Christmas Eve. It is said soldiers wrote home of this account by the thousands. Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade described the following, “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” It is said about 100,000 soldiers participated.
Some accounts said that the next morning, German soldiers emerged from their trenches, calling out “Merry Christmas” and holding up signs reading “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Troops even exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats. Over one hundred years later, this Christmas Truce reminds us of the power of hope and humanity and the human desire for peace. And to think that I would not have known about this amazing story had I not asked my mom for some of her memories.
There is a powerful quote by Mother Teresa that stands out in my mind this morning, “Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy.” It is sometimes not easy, but maybe we can begin the process and take small steps with this goal in mind.
Mostly dear ones, keep loving yourself and reach out to others and offer a smile, kindness, a helping hand and a listening ear. Indeed, this is where peace begins.
“Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” – Songwriters: Jill Jackson/Sy Miller
Reprinted from the weekly column, The Power of Love in the Penobscot Bay Press newspapers.
Joanne Steenberg is the founder of The Love Card. Her mission is to spread love to as many people on the planet as possible and to empower others to do the same. Since 2016 The Love Card has distributed over 260,000 all over the world. It is Steenberg’s hope that this pay-it-forward movement grows and reminds people of the power of love. A life-long educator she also teaches a self-empowerment course for teens entitled POWER. For more information visit TheLoveCard.org
