For today, this third day of Christmas meditations, I’m thinking not quite of French hens but rather the Gallic Rooster. No matter how far from the farm you are, you know that the rooster will crow at dawn to wake the world up. So today, I am thinking about awakening.
There is a line from one of my favorite holiday movies that I like: “There is a world going on beyond our problems”. It’s easy, when things are dark, to shut everything out. To forget there is a world outside of your own problems. And we shouldn’t.
One of the worst things I have ever gone through was infertility treatments. While I would never want to go through it again, or wish it one someone else, I am so happy to be the person I am now versus the person who started treatments. I don’t like the scars, but knowing that there are so many different personal hells, just in infertility, has made me so much more aware of how many hells exist I don’t even know about and how many people walk them everyday.
So I try to remember, every day, how hard life can be for people. And I try to be considerate of those days they are broken or sensitive and I try to help. And I try to think of that, not just for people I meet, but for everyone. I want to be awake to the rest of the world, and not just retreat into my own life and my own problems. It’s not easy to do, especially if I am hurting, but it is so important, unless we end up cold and callous.
So when I hear the French hens, I will think of the rooster doing his best to wake everyone up, no matter how little we want to be awake.