Don’t miss this Christmas opportunity!

COVID-19, and the restrictions it imposes, seems to have changed everything.

No parties. No family get-togethers. No hugs. We can still exchange gifts, but it really isn’t the same.

Now, we naturally see all this as something bad, and there’s nothing about COVID-19 that isn’t bad. But our response needn’t be. Interrupting long-held, celebratory habits offers occasion for something new and potentially profound.

Here’s an idea. Instead of thinking about seasonal parties and exchanging presents as we usually do, or even the Nativity story that mark Christmas with religious meaning, let’s focus on something else: the moral teachings of Jesus, which we too often forget.

What in particular? How about a personal transformation, a new, rejuvenated start in life that can be likened to being born again.

Let’s find out how truth can make us free—truth, instead of lies and the errors built on social illusions.

Let’s experience the very real joy that comes from helping those in need, even those whom we might not identify with.

How about justice, tempered by mercy?

Generosity and compassion for all?

Purity, without hypocrisy?

Humility?

Principles and priorities that reflect love and conscience rather than greed.

Forgiving past mistakes.

Weighing our words for their moral content before speaking them.

If we do this, we might discover an important truth about the meaning of Christmas—and maybe the holidays of all faith traditions, and reason itself:

The Mystery of life makes moral demands on us all. Conscience reveals that when we listen to it. When we follow those demands, as these holidays remind us, the entire world changes for the better.