Peace

Today is Christmas Day, celebrated by may around the world, including many of you.

I like to use the day to think about Peace -- within each of us and all around us. 

Angels announcing the birth of Jesus included the phrase "Peace on Earth." This is, unfortunately, another year where there seems to be a lack of peace on earth. I won't bother listing the places where there are conflicts between nations. Or, in an even longer list, of conflicts within nations. I'm not sure which is worse. People who should be on the same side are listening more to the people who point out their differences than the people who point out their similarities.

I was thinking about a similar thing recently -- conflicts between people with Lymphoma. When I was first diagnosed, many years ago, I found an excellent online support group for patients with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. So there were folks with many different types (some researchers say there are as many as 70 different types of Lymphoma). Every now and then, there were be a little fight about who had it worse, people with Follicular Lymphoma or people with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, the two most common types of NHL. (This usually started when someone posted that they were told they had "the good kind of cancer," which is a silly thing to tell someone.) The DLBCL people would say the FL people had it better, since they had a slow-growing cancer that they could live with for years, maybe not even needing treatment. The FL people said the DLBCL people had it better, since their cancer could be treated and cured. 

The reality is this -- no cancer is "good," so no cancer is "better." Every cancer comes with a physical and emotional cost. They're all different, and they're all bad. And the best response to any of those comments about who had it better or worse is this: "We all have two things in common. We all heard someone tell is 'You have cancer,' and we all heard someone respond to out first post in the group with, 'Sorry you had to find us, but I'm glad you did'."

Our similarities matter much more than our differences. 

As I get older, I seem to see more and more people who are more concerned with differences. I think that comes from fear. The world is changing rapidly, and we want to hold on to the things we know and are comfortable with, even if they aren't good. That's only natural. 

But I think the antidote to that fear is in recognizing the similarities. Not everything has changed. Many things remain the same. There's peace to be found in that. 

And as I get older, that's the peace that I am looking for. Some inner peace amid all of the outer turmoil in the world.

So, as I often do on Christmas Day, I'm wishing you all some inner peace. At least for the day. Maybe for the rest of the year. Hopefully far beyond.

Stay well. Thanks for reading.