How do we harness the Christmas/New Year’s Shalom?

Shalom means completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. Shalom comes from the root verb shalom meaning to be complete, perfect and full. [Strong’s Concordance]

i was thinking about this on our recent camping trip in the Cederberg. How is it that everyone is peaceful and loving and kind on Christmas Day… and then again on New Year’s Eve? And then they’re not…?

Around midnight a bunch of us were sitting at our camping table playing a game and strange people [well stranger people, as in people we didn’t know and had not had a single interaction with] started coming up to us and hugging us and wishing us “Happy New Year” and stuff. It was a little weird. But nice weird. Not monkey-throwing-poop-at-you-at-the-zoo weird.

And i thought to myself – what is happening here? There is not one single thing different in the world EXCEPTING FOR A CALENDAR DATE CHANGE which in essence is nothing – it’s a mind game, that’s all – and yet the world has mellowed out.

We see it Christmas Day [although maybe not in the stores or parking lots in the days leading up to Christmas Day] and to some extent we see it on Valentine’s Day.

We see it when South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup or the rights to host the Football World Cup. And on Bafana Bafana match day in the Football World Cup.

Everyone comes together. Everyone loves everyone. Black white coloured indian. There is no distinction, there is just us.

HOW DO WE BOTTLE IT?

i love the Hebrew concept of Shalom. It is way bigger than the ‘peace’ it is often translated as.

Shalom means completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. Shalom comes from the root verb shalom meaning to be complete, perfect and full.

That feels like the finish line goal for South Africa. And maybe for where you live as well.

But how do we get there? If nothing is actually different about the day – both Christmas and New Year’s Day are just days – they are only different because we imagine them to be – then surely if we made those same decisions every day, we would be a great distance closer to Shalom.

What if we treated people every day as if it was New Year’s Eve and the clock had just struck twelve and we are seriously on the lookout for strangers to greet and smile at and love and hug and say nice things to? 

What if we invited strangers into our homes and refused to let people sleep in the streets or in the cold and we shared our stuff and we thought things like “No person should be suffering on Christmas a Thursday”?

It is heart-breaking to know we have the potential inside of us [i saw it on Christmas and New Year’s Day] and yet make choices to not realise it. How do we get to a space where we wake up with hearts of peace and compassion and mercy and generosity and a hunger for completeness for both ourselves and everyone around us?

This morning i watched this new Coldplay video where they invited people from around the world to send in pictures and video for their new song called ‘Amazing Day.’ What is happening in your corner of the world? was the ask, and the response made me a little emotional and really just backed up everything i’ve been thinking and saying here.

Coldplay Facebook page and Amazing Day video 

The bottom line with these things tends to be that i can only work on my own personal Shalom [at least in terms of changes i actually have a hand in].

i can encourage, champion and cheer on the Shalom in my community, whether that is friends, family or work and sports groups.

And i can continue to hold to a #NotOnOurWatch mentality and lifestyle of interrupting racism/sexism/otherisms as i see them play out in front of me.

So that together as a person, as a family, as a community, a neighbourhood, province and country, we can start resembling more and more a completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. Shalom comes from the root verb shalom meaning to be complete, perfect and full.