“Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it – because it does.”
1 Corinthians 14:1 MSG

On Christmas Eve in 1914, British soldiers in the trenches silenced their gunfire as they listened to German soldiers sing Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht. Both sides met in No Man’s Land, taking advantage of the ceasefire to sing Christmas songs, exchange gifts, and recover their fallen comrades. For just a little while, they put aside their differences and celebrated the birth of the One True King. For just a little while, they were united.

We live in uncertain times; a chaotic world that is upside down. Negativity and hatred fills the world we live in, where verbal gunfire maims one, while stepping over mortar eggshells in order not to offend another.

What if we put aside our differences, for a little while, to call a truce with one another?

I love the new AT&T commercial where a family gathers to participate in all the busy work of the holidays, while the daughter spends all her time disconnected, with her face in her phone. The commercial ends with dad unwrapping his daughter’s gift to him, which is her cell phone. We don’t spend enough time with each other, nor do we communicate face to face anymore. We live in the technological era, where information is literally at our fingertips. We have to know everything right away. Every email and every text message seem so urgent, and we must respond immediately. We approach our conversations through text messages where emotion and tone are not present and information is always misconstrued. There is so much more information you can get just by looking into a person’s eyes, without uttering a single word.

What if we put our cell phones down, look each other in the eyes, and talk, dream, laugh, and cry with each other?

We don’t have to go to each other’s world to recognize our common bond: LOVE. We can step over conversations that are divisive, and stick with easy conversations about our hopes and dreams, and then we can DREAM BIG together.

What if we found our No Man’s Land, and let love be our highest goal?

Merry Christmas!

Peace be with you.

~Julia