Christmas, I would like something with a French name. It is called a Treve de Dieu. A treve is a truce, an intermission, a respite. A Treve de Dieu is the Truce of God to which the Church, in the Dark Ages, managed to get the consent of warring barons. If they wouldn’t stop carving each other up, looting and pillaging, at least they agreed to stop on Sundays, high feast days and a few special holy periods in the year.
Wouldn’t it be great if at least on Christmas Day we could all wake up and know that, just for those 24 hours, nobody was shooting across borders, nobody was being tortured in a prison cell, contracts were honored, people were happily loving one another.
It’s a pipe dream, I know. However, I’ll accept a small truce — one that starts at my front gate and stretches across the street to my neighbor and from him or her to the next one down.…
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