Each night...

It’s a religious holiday, and I wonder if I’m religious. I don’t seem to have the capacity to believe anything that science can’t prove. I don’t believe that Jesus was the son of god; I don’t believe in god. Maybe I’m wrong about all that, who knows. Maybe I don’t believe because I’ve been incredibly lucky and haven’t had to, so far.

When M. came back from Sierra Leone, she told me that the mothers and fathers believe that for the first few weeks (or was it months?) after birth, a baby is really still the property of god, who may decide to take the baby back at any time. I can imagine how comforting that would be in a land where 15 percent of infants die before their first birthday.

So it’s really not my point to foist my beliefs on you, but rather to share this one: as a Unitarian, at Christmas I celebrate that each night that a child is born is a holy night. That every child is born full of wonder and hope, and changes the world in unimaginably good ways, and if we’re lucky enough to have children in our lives, we should cherish them, expect good things from them, and let them become exactly who they are.

Merry Christmas, and thanks for making this blog experiment so fun.