Winter Negativa

Winter is the Earth's Negativa experience: a time of sinking, cooling, the time of going within, of letting go, of dying, so that new life, Spring, may eventually come. And the Negativa is always difficult. Winter is hard not just for the four-leggeds and the flora, but for us two-leggeds as well, especially the holidays. This is the time of year that depression reigns, whether a result of Seasonal Affective Disorder or the crisis of loneliness that the holidays bring on when one realizes that he or she will be celebrating alone.

The holidays can be difficult even if one is not alone, however. Some would welcome the comparatively stress-free atmosphere of loneliness to the conflict that often results when families that are sharply divided religiously, politically, or otherwise ideologically, are forced together by a sense of obligation. Many of us belong to such a family. Instead of truly loving and accepting each other, the divisions become the unspoken subtext around which everything else revolves. It feels like an exhausting game in which no one wins, and much energy is expended, leaving us frustrated that no real "connection" was made. We find ourselves longing for the joy and redemption that Christ's birth is supposed to bring to our lives, wondering why we go through the motions of this charade year after year.

The reason, I think, is that we genuinely love these people, and genuinely desire this "connection" more than anything we can imagine. But we don't know how to get past the walls that years-perhaps decades-of misunderstanding, disappointment, and resentment have built up between us. Somehow, over time, our loved ones have come to represent the enemy, or have in some symbolic way, become the enemy themselves. The religiously liberal daughter has become, in her parents' eyes, a traitor to Christ and the instrument of Satan; the politically conservative man has become, in his liberal brother's eyes, the fascist dupe who is single-handedly responsible for the pain and misery of the poor. As a result, we only see our divisions, and we cease to see each other as flesh-and-blood people, who all laugh, feel joy and pain, who all cry in the night when the sting of loneliness or regret finds us.

How do we get past these barriers? How do we find true, heart-felt reunion with those that we love? Lao Tzu tells us that the greatest mistake we can make is to underestimate our enemy, and underestimating our enemy means thinking that they are evil. We have to start by realizing that each one of us does what he or she does, and believes what he or she believes because we genuinely feel it is right. People don't become Republicans, for example, because they want to be evil. They become Republicans because they think that a conservative approach to government is genuinely best for the country. People don't leave fundamentalism because they want to forsake the Gospel, but because they truly seek to find it. No sane person seeks to do evil, but every sane person has a unique vision of what is good. If we are to heal the pain of our divisions, we must seek to honor the integrity of each person's intentions, recognizing that our divisions are solely the result of each one of us trying to discover what is good, what is right, and what is honorable, even when doing so puts us at odds with the efforts of the people close to our hearts, let alone those with whom we differ in the culture at large.

We can also try to find more common ground. The Colorado Springs Citizens Project, for example, has been hosting "Dialogue Dinners," at which ten or so people, consisting of equal numbers of conservatives and liberals, meet for dinner. There is no attempt to reach consensus or to change another's mind, and as a result, participants say they often discover more shared values between the groups than they expected. And healing is happening.

This winter many of us will sit down to dinner with "the enemy," and I have hope, that, at least in my home-at least in my own heart-some of the walls can begin to be dismantled, and that my loved ones can begin to be just that: loved ones.

This Winter issue is the last in which the efforts of many of our beloved staff may be seen. Dan Turner, editor since August 1990, is, in the company of his wife Elizabeth and a group of Buddhist monks, embarking on a year-long peace walk from Auschwitz to Hiroshima. Julie Fretzin will also continue to contribute her superb interviews, and will work as a regional connector in Clearlake, California. Nate McFadden has become an editor at a publishing company that specializes in computer books-not to worry, his "Cybergnosis" column will be here, provocative as ever. These three, together with Ken Canedo, mentioned below, and Mary Kay Hunyady, who served as our assistant editor from 1991 through 1993, comprised the most wondrous office staff I have ever had the pleasure to work with, and I will miss them sorely.
This issue also welcomes some new staff: Karyn Wolfe, whose name is not unfamiliar to our readers, is now our circulation manager and assistant editor; and Ken Canedo, formerly the administrative assistant and interim office manager for Friends of Creation Spirituality, will be our new editorial assistant. And now that we are moving to a new office environment, we welcome back Clare, our office dog, from her long exile.

The new staff is dedicated to continuing the proud tradition that this magazine has been bringing its readers for the last ten years. As always, your comments, suggestions, and submissions are welcomed and honored. Welcome to the New Creation!*