As we near the new year, I’ve been reading many posts and articles about looking back on 2021 and saying what was good and bad about it. As I’m looking back on this past year, I’ve decided that the question I’m going to as myself is: what have I learned this past year?
Whether experiences have provided a good result or a bad result, both these type of experiences bring learning, something new about yourself, about another person or about a situation that you might not have known before. To me, that could be more valuable than judging whether an experience is good or bad.
They killed as ordered by their jealous and insecure king
On a silent night
They slept
From the crook of Mother’s arm
They were snatched
And dispatched
Mercifully (one hopes) with a single slice or a single stab
On a silent night
They wept
For their lineage broken
Their dream bleeding out
Before his first word, his first step
Leaving houses stained with sorrow that could never be cleansed
On a silent night
They left
Their son spared but wailing
For innocents, young and old,
Corrupted by the evilness of ego
Silence will not bring the redemption needed to heal the night
I saw this sign in a yard on a recent walk. My cynical side said, “Really? Doesn’t seem like it…” My hopeful side said, “Um, I think that message was for you. ”
Today is the Catholic Feast of the Holy Innocents, a day we remember the male children aged 2 and under who were slaughtered by King Herod because he feared one of them would be the king who would take his throne (Matthew 2, specifically verses 13 -18). I did not set out to post a poem today. Actually, since I have been MIA, I was going to post something in the new year – one of my new year’s resolutions.
Despite being a mother who has lost two babies and who has read about children being killed in schools due to gun violence, I have never really thought about the Holy Innocents. In the Christmas stories, it doesn’t get the same recognition as the shepherds or the magi. Maybe it’s because it’s such a horrific event and we don’t want to associate it with the happiness of Christmas. Maybe it’s because the killing of children has become so commonplace in our society that it doesn’t even register as something that needs special attention (think of refugee children running from war-torn countries or all the children living below the poverty line in the United States). Maybe it’s simply because this feast day is not celebrated on a Sunday.
Whatever the reason, today, I’m remembering all the innocents that have been lost and all the innocence that has been lost, specifically in the past six years. Maybe this loss started before that time, but as we close out 2021 and review what is happening in the United States of America politically and morally, I find the sorrow of a mother who lost a child welling up again.
I Do Run 