K Ela
Christmas season is here once again and even this year, it’s going to mean so many things to so many people. How many will really know and let others know what Christmas really means? To some it will be sending love and greetings to near and dear ones. To some it will mean renewing of faith and time of introspection. To some it may mean reaching out to someone in need of love and care. To some it may mean new clothes and new shoes. To some it may mean lots of good food and drinks, eating and drinking to the hearts content! To some it will mean wild times with wild friends and nothing more! To some it may mean decorating the home and the streets but the hearts left bare and cold!
I wonder how many will really celebrate Christmas with the right spirit, with the spirit of love, peace and joy. Do we make Christmas a mere festival of food, drinks and clothes? Or just a festival of singing of Christmas carols without music in our hearts? Are we simply inside the church without a room for Christ in our hearts? Christmas stars atop almost every home, so beautiful to the eye, I wonder how many homes underneath that star will truly shine for many who may be in total darkness looking for a glimpse of light!
Christmas season, how we all look forward to this season and the day. This year too, as I look around the town all set to celebrate Christmas, I am happy but I can’t help but feel sad for many for whom its going to be just another day or another painful season! Perhaps many will receive and give lots of love; lots of gifts, for them I am glad. They are fortunate enough to give love and to experience the love of Christ through friends and near and dear ones. But what about those boys and girls who have no friends, no father and mother to wish them “Merry Christmas?” No one to give them a warm Christmas hug. What about those boys and girls who have never got a Christmas gift in their lives? What about the old man next door who have no one to talk to? What about the poor mother next door who has nothing to give her children as Christmas gift!? What about the sick and the broken hearted? What about those young man and young woman lost in the streets, silently wishing for somebody to show them that they care? How many will step out from the four walls of the church and bring them home? I wonder how many will remember them and make this Christmas of theirs a Christmas to remember?
I wonder how many will take the first sip of drink /shot of drugs, this Christmas, the first of many regrets and miserable days to follow? I dread to think that, this Christmas too will be scarred and distorted by orgies of drinking and drugging, wild parties, flaunting and exchanging of expensive gifts between people who don’t actually ‘need’ them. As Christmas is round the corner, I have in mind those families who will be dreading the season because they cannot afford to buy gifts and good clothes unlike other “fortunate families”. I feel for those parents dreading Christmas because their children will be squandering away their hard earned-money in drinks, drugs and wild parties and who knows end up in fights and broken limbs and broken hearts for many! My heart goes out for those children who will not be getting much but maybe a glimpse of the expensive toys and clothes in the shop windows! Perhaps they will wonder why their parents cannot buy them the same things, why can’t they have things as other children ? Or maybe if someone has told them about Santa Clause, they might pray that Santa brings them some gifts! I believe Santa Clause is close by and listening to their prayers!
Dimapur is once again aglow with the beautifully lighted and decorated houses, churches, shops, streets, etc.How I wish our hearts are as warm as the Christmas Bonfires and bright as the stars. Too many hearts have grown cold and blind to the cries around. Has Dimapur, looking colorful and warm, not enough warm hearts to warm those little hearts steadily hardening for lack of love and touch. Do we have just the superficial looks of Christmas or do we have a heart of Christmas too? How many giving heart can we hope to see this Christmas? How many warm hearts will warm up the cold and hunger of so many seeking in the dark?
To all my young friends out there, looking forward to celebrate Christmas, don’t let your Christmas end with drinks, drugs and meaningless enjoyment. There’s so much fun you can have without drinks and drugs and wild parties. Christmas, a time of peace and joy, it is meant to be the best time of the year. But to many families it has become the most fearful and worst time of the year! Initiation into drinks, drugs and sex! Are we Naga boys and girls, so senseless and shallow? I know we have a wealth of goodness in each of us. Why can’t we for a change let that goodness shine and let others see what Christmas really means? Can we let our near and dear ones celebrate Christmas in peace and joy? Please stay off drinks and drugs and meaningless parties, its not worth the pain and misery that you go through after a stint of madness! For many it becomes a lifetime filled with regrets! Don’t make the same mistake! I have seen too many living now with regret, its too painful, and believe me; many wished that if only they have listen to their parents, their elders, their well-wishers, things would have been different! If anybody says you are being sissy and boring or spoilsport or whatever they call you for not indulging in drinks or drugs or anything foolish and suicidal, tell them you dare to be different this Christmas and challenge them to do the same! One day they will thank you for making them celebrate their Christmas with a difference.
Let us celebrate this Christmas with a difference by making a positive difference to someone’s life and our own lives too. This Christmas, can we commit ourselves to pray for those we have never prayed for? Show love to those who has never known what love is? Reach out to someone who is rejected and condemned? Heal someone’s pain? Be the reason for somebody to smile? Can we make this Christmas, a Christmas with a difference?
