As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For December 2024, the quote that centered me was “go easy, my love – go easy.”

I found this quote in a poem by John Roedel, and knew it was the advice, reminder, and mantra I would need throughout December. Not just to balance against the added Christmas activities and expectations, but for more personal reasons. This would be my first Christmas without Dad, and the last of the “firsts.” This quote gave me permission to move with ease in the tender moments of the holiday season and be with my heart not my head of “must do’s.”

Here are quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention during the month…

• Habits of the heart
• Claim time with the holy
• Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work
• Rest allows us to do what matters most
• Grief that remains with us until we pass is just unexpressed love because we never have enough time
• The glorious impossible
• God sadly has given you the experience to hold them through this painful time
• Welcome to the dream space
• We are divine
• Our spirit knows better
• There is space for the unknown
• The light resides inside the darkness
• You’re locating yourself
• Will you trust in your divinity enough?
• Reclaim rest as holy
• So, if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me for I, too, am fluent in silence
• When you can’t look at the bright side, I’ll sit with you in the dark
• Who are the sharpeners of your vision?
• You can just be

Go

The quote showed up differently for me throughout the month. It began more of a command, “go easy!” as I struggled to decorate—as each decoration put me in the setting of dad’s final days last year, and a time of year he cherished most. A complex contradiction of lights, smells, and embodied memories in every Christmas decoration. It morphed into permission to walk away from some traditions, “my love, go easy.” It was a balm when my emotions continued to bubble up – a reminder to be with them rather than push through them, “easy, my love.”

Easy

The quote also inspired me to step off the glittery holiday carousel and really sit with my shit. I didn’t want to wallow, but there was too much to feel. So, I listened. “Love, go.” And I went to my first “Longest Night” service at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Held on the Winter Solstice, the day with the most darkness, the contemplative candlelight service provided space to be in community as we each individually connected with our loss and acknowledged it. Scripture, meditation, and music. The simple service did not eliminate our pain or try to whitewash it away with good news. It simply gave space – acceptance – that hurt and hope, loss and love, were part of living with heart. That we see and feel the light because of the darkness that is there. Each one makes the other seen and felt.

The service closed with silence. Each person centered on their heart’s emotions. Then if compelled to, they rose to light a candle as they prayed silently for light in their – or their loved ones – darkness.

Each person invited to remain in the tiny white chapel as long as they needed, in the warm glow of the sacred light we generated in prayer. I was the last one there. Alone in the scared stillness, snot-nosed, and held by divine grace.

My love

The tears fell. Poured. In what was clearly a needed release. My unexpressed love and unprocessed loss bottled up, now fully released. “My love, go.”

Alone, I walked to the back of the chapel. There I found the brass plaque with Dad’s name and life dates on the columbarium wall. I laid my hand on it, spoke to him, and prayed for many in my life—those who buoyed me this past year and those who need support now too.

As I turned and stood in the doorway to the chapel, it was then that I noticed just how much light our individual prayers of comfort and hope generated.

Go easy.

My love.

Go easy.