There is nothing brighter than the smile of a child during the season of Christmas.
They look at the world with eyes dancing in anticipation, secure in the knowledge that something magical is about to happen. They try their best to be good, for goodness sake. They sing their loudest and grin their widest at Christmas time.
They warm our hearts.
These children, these beacons of joy among us, are filled with the hope that the season promises and the rest of us do our best to deliver.
There lurks behind the sounds and sights of red and green, trees and Santa Claus and Rudolph and the rest, the almost certain knowledge that for some children, their hope will be unfulfilled, unrecognized, unreconciled.
Yet hope lies at the heart of the season. And the hope of children can serve as an avatar for the rest of us in times that often seem bereft of any cause for optimism.
A time when wars roil the Middle East and Ukraine, when mass shootings in our nation have become routine, and when politics have become farce, it can be difficult to view the future with any tinge of positivity.