Who in this house gave me a gift of peace this year?
Who brought peace into my life this year?
Generosity and Hope gave the tree its first two layers, and this week adds a third: peace. Last week, hope was a want that walks. This week asks where the walking leads, and how a person can tell they're on the right path when the path is hard. For the next seven days, we look at peace as wholeness, everything as it ought to be, and at the people who helped make things whole for us this year.
December 15 to 17: Saturate. These three days are for receiving, one circle each: the people in your house (Core) on December 15, the people within your reach (Community) on December 16, and the good that comes from beyond anyone's grip (Cosmos) on December 17. Each day ends with an ornament.
December 18: Celebrate. The third candle is lit from the second, and everyone reads the gold ornaments with their own name on them.
December 19 to 21: Participate. These three days are for giving peace, one currency at a time: time on December 19, resources on December 20, and words on December 21.
Every daily reading has the same three parts: a picture for the heart, a point for the head, and a practice for the hands. On the giving days, the picture is a story, then a song, then a scene from a film.
This evening is made up, but most of us have lived a few like it. It's a weeknight in December with nothing special on the calendar. Grandpa is home from the hospital and doing fine, so the worry that sat at the table all fall has finally left. The two brothers who weren't speaking on Saturday worked it out on Sunday, and tonight one of them is helping the other with homework without being asked. The car is fixed, and the bill that kept Mom up at night is paid.
Dinner is soup, nothing fancy. Somebody tells a story about the dog, and the laugh goes all the way around the table. After the dishes, nobody drifts off to a screen. The youngest falls asleep on the couch with her feet in Dad's lap, and for a long while nobody moves, because nobody wants to break it.
Nothing big happened that night. What made it so good is that nothing was missing and nothing was broken. Nobody was owed an apology, nobody was waiting on bad news, and every person was where they belonged.
Most of us can count evenings like that on our fingers, and we remember them for years. They feel like what we were made for, because they're a small taste of where this whole journey is headed.
On December 18, your family lights the third of five candles from the second one, and peace gets added to the answer when the candle words ask, "What do we pass on?" This week is about the people who help make things whole.
When most of us hear the word peace, we picture quiet: no shouting, no war on the news, a calm house. Quiet is part of it, but the idea Jesus grew up with was much bigger. In the Hebrew of his people, the everyday word for peace means wholeness: things complete and the way they ought to be, like a body that has healed or a friendship that has been put right. Peace is wholeness: everything where it belongs, nothing missing, nothing broken.
That's why a house can be silent and still have no peace in it. Two people can stop arguing and still be far apart. The quiet that lasts comes after something has been made whole.
Isaiah, a prophet from about seven hundred years before Jesus (the Ancient Light candle words quoted him on December 11), wrote to a nation living in fear of a foreign empire. In the middle of that fear, he described a coming king: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end." Many of Jesus's followers have heard him in that promise, which is why it gets read at so many Christmas services.
Last week, hope was a want that walks. Peace is where the walking leads. It's the destination: a world where every wrong has been made right and every person is where they belong. Nobody gets there in a single December, but most of us catch glimpses along the way, like that evening around the soup. And most of us had someone this year who made one of those glimpses happen, by forgiving us, by apologizing, or by telling us it was going to be okay.
Who in your house helped make something whole again this year?
Today the third green layer of the Giving Tree goes up, a little narrower than the second, taped just above it. Then come the gold ornaments.
Cut a gold or yellow paper circle for each person in your house other than you.
On the front, write the person's name.
On the back, thank them for one gift of peace this year: pointing you in the right direction, showing you a good path by words or example, encouraging you that you were on the right track, reminding you that another path was a waste, forgiving you, apologizing when they wronged you, or reminding you that everything would be okay. "Thank you for apologizing first after our fight in August."
Tape it to the new layer with the writing toward the wall.
Nobody reads the backs yet. They wait for the third candle on December 18.
Kids' story: read "One Whole Evening" from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods together.
Time: 15 to 20 minutes, plus about five to put up the layer.
With kids: ask, "Can you remember a time someone in our family made things right with you?" A child can draw that moment on the back of the ornament, or pick which gift fits and tell you what to write.
If you live alone: use the choice you made for line 6 of your plan in Prepare.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, Mr. Moose climbed all the way to the top of Everest’s cliff, and the little squash lantern was left glowing up there beside Everest. Now the whole woods can see one small light at the very top. Tonight, both families are having supper together at the Moose home.
Have you ever had an evening so good you wished it would never end? Let’s go see what happens at supper.
Snow was falling softly outside the Moose home, big slow flakes drifting past the window. Inside, the fire popped, the soup pot bubbled, and the whole house smelled like carrots and onions and warm bread.
Tonight, both families were together. Mama and Daddy Moose. Mama and Daddy Monkey. And Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey, sitting side by side at the table with the paint and a pile of gold birch-bark circles, making thank-yous before supper.
Mr. Moose was painting very slowly, the way he did everything. He had the little pot of gold paint right next to him.
Mr. Monkey wanted the gold too. He’d been waiting. And waiting. And Mr. Moose was so slow.
So Mr. Monkey reached over and grabbed it.
Mr. Moose had his brush in the pot at that exact moment. The pot tipped. And gold paint went everywhere: all over Mr. Moose’s circle, all over the table, and right up onto the end of Mr. Moose’s nose.
Mr. Moose looked down at his circle. It had been Daddy Moose’s face. Now it was just a big gold puddle.
“Mr. Monkey,” he said quietly. “I was painting that for Daddy.”
Mr. Monkey looked at the puddle, and at Mr. Moose’s sad face with a gold nose on the end of it, and his tummy dropped right down to his feet. He hadn’t asked. He’d just grabbed. And now Mr. Moose’s circle was ruined.
He put the paint pot down.
“I shouldn’t have grabbed it,” said Mr. Monkey. “I’m sorry. I won’t grab again. How can I make it right?”
Mr. Moose was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Yeah, I didn’t like that. But we all make mistakes. Thank you for apologizing. I forgive you.”
“Can I help you paint a new one?” asked Mr. Monkey.
“Yes,” said Mr. Moose. “You can hold the circle still.”
So Mr. Monkey held a fresh circle very, very still while Mr. Moose painted, and he didn’t touch the paint pot once. Then he looked at Mr. Moose’s nose. It was still bright gold.
“Mr. Moose,” he whispered. “Your nose is gold.”
Mr. Moose went cross-eyed trying to see it. “Is it shiny?”
“It’s VERY shiny.”
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “Mr. Moose has a golden nose!”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose.
Mr. Monkey tried to help. He wiped Mr. Moose’s nose with the end of his tail. But that only spread the gold around, and when he looked at his tail, the tip of it was gold too.
“Now we both have gold,” said Mr. Monkey.
“Hee hee hee!” he went, and he waved his golden tail like a little paintbrush. Mr. Moose didn’t wipe his nose again after that.
Then it was supper.
Mama Moose filled everybody’s bowl. Nothing fancy: just soup, and bread, and the gold candle in the middle of the table, the very first one the lantern had ever lit.
Daddy Monkey told the story of his bumpy vine, and how he went boing, boing, boing all the way down, and he did the boings with his whole body, right there in his chair. “Hoo-hee-hee! Boing!” laughed Mama Monkey, and she had to put her spoon down.
Then Daddy Moose, who almost never told stories, said, “I slipped on the ice this morning and slid all the way to the woodpile on my back,” and everybody stared at him, because Daddy Moose never slipped on anything.
“On your BACK?” said Mr. Monkey.
“Like a sled,” said Daddy Moose seriously. “With my legs in the air.”
“Hee hee hee!”
“Ha-ha-ha!”
And the laugh went all the way around the table, one person to the next, and back to the start.
Then Daddy Moose picked up his bowl and drank the last of his soup. SSSSLLLUUUURRRRP. It was so loud and so long that the candle flame leaned over sideways.
“Daddy!” said Mr. Moose.
“It’s the best part,” said Daddy Moose.
After supper, nobody wanted to get up. Mama Monkey sat by the fire with her feet up. Daddy Monkey leaned back in his chair. Mama Moose hummed while she dried the bowls. And Mr. Monkey looked around at all of it: the fire and the candle and his family and Mr. Moose’s family and Mr. Moose’s golden nose, all together, all warm.
He felt it in his chest, so big he could hardly hold it. He didn’t want it to stop. Not ever.
“NOBODY MOVE!” said Mr. Monkey.
Everybody froze.
Mama Monkey froze with one foot in the air. Daddy Monkey froze with a spoon balanced on the end of his nose. Mama Moose froze holding a bowl over her head. Daddy Moose froze in the middle of a yawn, with his mouth wide open.
“If nobody moves,” whispered Mr. Monkey, “then it never has to end.”
They stayed frozen. They stayed frozen a long time. Daddy Moose’s yawn got bigger and bigger. Mama Monkey’s foot started to wobble. Daddy Monkey’s spoon started to slide.
And then Mr. Monkey hiccuped. “HIC!”
The spoon fell off Daddy Monkey’s nose into his lap. Mama Monkey’s foot came down. Daddy Moose finished his yawn with a big “Hwaaaaah.”
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “I moved first!”
Mr. Moose was thinking. The evening hadn’t stopped being good when everybody moved. It was still just as good. It wasn’t good because everybody was still. So what was it?
He looked around the room. Earlier, his circle had been ruined, and he and Mr. Monkey had made it right. The light was at the top of Everest’s cliff, where it was supposed to be. Daddy Monkey’s thumb had healed. Nobody was mad at anybody. Nobody was missing.
“Mr. Monkey,” he said softly. “It’s not because nobody’s moving. It’s because everything is where it’s supposed to be. Nothing’s broken.”
Mr. Monkey looked around too. Everything was. Even the gold paint was back in its pot.
“Then let’s say thank you for it,” he said.
They finished the gold circles together.
Mr. Moose painted one for Daddy Moose. On the back, he painted the night the light went out on the ridge, and Daddy Moose relighting it at the table, and the leaf-shaped lights coming back on all over the walls. “For telling me it was lit again,” he said.
Mr. Monkey painted one for Mama Monkey, for the morning last summer when he broke her favorite bowl, and she said it was okay, and they glued it back together. “For forgiving me,” he said.
Then Mr. Monkey painted one more, very carefully. On the front, a moose face with a big gold nose. On the back, two friends painting at a table, and one paint pot, sitting very still in the middle.
“That one’s for you,” he said. “For forgiving me today.”
They hung them on the little pine by the door, painted side to the trunk.
Before Mr. Monkey went home, the two of them stood at the window and looked up through the falling snow. Way up at the top of Everest’s cliff, the little light was still glowing. But it looked a tiny bit smaller than it had last night.
“What a day!” said Mr. Monkey at the door, all bundled up. “I grabbed the paint and spilled it on Mr. Moose’s nose, and I said sorry, and he forgave me.
Daddy Moose slid to the woodpile like a sled and slurped his soup so loud the candle leaned over. I said ‘Nobody move,’ and then I hiccuped. And everything was right where it was supposed to be.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And inside the Moose home, the gold candle burned low and warm on the table, while far above the snowy woods, a smaller gold light glowed at the top of the highest cliff.