You can listen to this newsletter instead of reading it. Click the long black rectangle above these words.

Here we are, on the darkest of the year.

According to my weather app, the sun will rise today at 7:48am, shortly after this arrives in your inboxes, and will set at 4:43pm. Eight hours and fifty-five minutes of daylight.

But, you don’t need me to tell you that this darkness isn’t just about a lack of sunshine.

The crisis in the Middle East, the climate’s steady warming, the income gap, the loneliness that surfaces for so many of us in December — this paragraph could be a mile long and it wouldn’t list all the reasons why our hearts are aching.

And still, we gather. We show up, even when it’s hard. We have painful conversations. We laugh and lean in. We find each other. And through that, we find the parts of ourselves that we need to carry on.

I grew up in the Christian church. I know it’s not for everyone, but I had beautiful times there. These days though, the spirit that carries me through is something very secular and relational. The church of everyday connection. The holy spirit of each human voice. The sacrament of “Hi. How are you. Sit down, and talk. I really want to know.”

Lately I’ve been busy collecting gift cards for families arriving from Gaza.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky to get connected to a very kind and hardworking Palestinian food bank manager in Mississauga who is helping 11 families fleeing Gaza get settled.

She doesn’t have the capacity for formal fundraising, and she doesn’t want her personal information online, but she has invited us to collect gift cards on her behalf, to go to the families. They are arriving with very little, and looking for everything you need to start over.

If you are able to help, I’d welcome it.

You can send digital gift cards to my email address, or mail them to:

Firefly Creative Writing
PO Box 72062
RPO Coxwell Shoppers
Toronto, ON
M4C 0A1

The organizer has especially asked for cards for FreshCo, Shoppers Drug Mart, and Winners.

You can also help by spreading the word — you can share this Google Doc, or if you use Instagram, this post.

To bring some more Firefly-love to this, everyone who sends a gift card of $50 or more before January 10th will get a thank you care package (with chocolate and poetry) from us, and be entered into a draw for 3 free writing coaching sessions. Just make sure to also email me your contact info to get those perks.

To me, it’s an honour and relief to have a way to create a little more lightness outside of myself right now.

Whether it’s with this gift card drive or not, I hope you’ll find a way to do that this season, and I hope someone else will do it for you.

So, here’s to December, and how we carry one another along. Here’s to your voice, and its sacred place in the whole. Here’s to leaning in, being ourselves, and working in our own way to create a home for each other in this world.

And some other news:

We have beautiful new videos!

Even though of course we all cringe seeing ourselves on screen, we are so proud of these! We have a new welcome video, an introduction to our BIPOC Writing Programming, and you can finally meet Mari, Asifa, and Kim on screen.

Big thanks to Dom Productions for capturing us, and to everyone who showed up to help us film.

Is it OK to end this note with hope?

I keep thinking about this thing Krista Tippett wrote last month. I want to close this last newsletter of the year with her words.

“In days and weeks like this, we walk alongside each other and we carry the load of our pain and our fear together. There might be days when the muscle of my hope is stronger, and I will feel that and exercise it for you. There will be days when I need you to do the same for me.”

See you in 2024, dear ones.

In it with you,

The last Firefly newsletter of 2023 ✨