The other day, I remembered something I yelled during one of those chaotic Advent afternoons when the kids were small and feral from sugar and anticipation. And before you say anything, yes, I realize it’s September. No tinsel in sight. But my brain doesn’t care—it likes to serve up Christmas chaos memories year-round, like a Hallmark marathon nobody asked for. We were in the middle of one of our Christmas countdown traditions—candy cane hunt, messy crafts that left glue on the dog, and cookie baking that was mostly just a cover for “eat as much frosting as you can while Mom isn’t looking.”
Picture wrapping paper carnage from half-finished craft projects, Christmas stockings worn on feet like elf boots, sprinkles scattered across the kitchen like confetti after a parade, and someone inevitably crying because their candy cane broke in half.
In the middle of all that holly-jolly chaos, I heard myself shout across the room:
“Please do NOT throw baby Jesus!”
And then, not two minutes later:
“Seriously, if you’re gonna fight over Jesus, we need to put Him back in the manger and you can both go to your rooms.”
At the time, I wasn’t being profound. I was just trying to keep my porcelain nativity scene intact while preventing World War III between an eight-year-old shepherd who thought sheep-herding required full-contact combat and a five-year-old angel with zero chill. (If you’ve never seen a kindergartner armed with both a candy cane sword and the audacity of being overtired, let me assure you: peace on earth is not on the horizon.)
But lately, that line has been rolling around in my head. Not just for nostalgia’s sake, but because—bless it—if that wouldn’t be the perfect thing to shout into a room full of adults right now.
We are out here flinging our version of “baby Jesus” at each other. Our values. Our opinions. Our identities. Our politics. And it’s not just politics. It’s education. Parenting. Marriage. Faith. Even whether pineapple belongs on pizza. (For the record, it only does if ham is involved. But also: it’s maybe not worth losing a friendship over.)
The internet has become one giant preschool, but with better vocabulary and worse listening skills. I swear, some days Facebook feels like snack time gone wrong—everyone grabbing for the last Goldfish cracker, nobody willing to say sorry or to share.
And here’s the thing I’ve learned from both actual children and grown-up ones: When you’re fighting to prove you’re right about love, you’ve already missed the point of it.
We don’t get to weaponize sacred things. Not grace. Not hope. Not each other. And we definitely don’t get to hoard them, either. The sacred things—dignity, belonging, compassion—aren’t limited edition prizes you win by yelling the loudest. They’re meant to be shared, to multiply when given away.
But wow, do we try.
I’ve sat in meetings where someone practically threw their “baby Jesus” across the conference table—disguised as a policy, a pet project, or a thinly veiled ego trip. You could almost see it soaring through the air: fragile, meaningful, but used as a tool to win instead of an invitation to connect. And everyone in the room would duck, because no one really wants to catch something that comes at them like a projectile.
I’ve seen couples lob theirs across the kitchen counter in the middle of a “discussion” that was really just Olympic-level sarcasm. One person throws out, “If you loved me, you’d…” and the other one deflects with a comeback sharp enough to draw blood. The thing they’re fighting for—love, connection, trust—gets shattered in the process.
I’ve been guilty of chucking mine on social media, too. I’ve hit “post” with the smugness of someone who thinks their meme just won the internet. Spoiler alert: it did not. What it did was add more noise to the already deafening room where everyone is yelling to be right, and no one is pausing to be kind.
And I know why we do it. We’re tired. Tired of arguing. Tired of doomscrolling. Tired of feeling like every conversation is a minefield. You can’t talk about anything without stepping on a grenade or someone demanding a full dissertation. You can’t even post about tacos without a stranger correcting you on whether cilantro belongs there or if it tastes like soap.
But exhaustion doesn’t excuse cruelty. It just makes it easier. And when we’re exhausted, we’re more likely to weaponize what we love most, because it feels like the only thing we have left to defend. That’s why the work of peace isn’t just individual—it’s communal. We can’t keep lobbing candy cane swords at each other and then wonder why the room feels unsafe. Peace grows when we look up from our own corner of the internet long enough to notice the neighbor across the street—or the coworker across the table—who’s just as tired and human as we are.
Here’s the catch: once love becomes a weapon, it’s not love anymore. It’s just another candy cane sword in the hands of a toddler who needs a nap.
And honestly? The mom in me would love to send everyone to their rooms for a reset. Sometimes I just want to call a timeout for the whole world and say, “Okay, y’all. We’re putting baby Jesus back in the manger. Everybody breathe. Nobody touch anything until you can be kind.”
The truth is, I haven’t figured this out. I still have days where I want to lob a snow globe across the room and stomp off muttering something dramatic like, “Fine, you can just sit in your wrongness and be wrong.”
And if you’re reading this and already think you know what “side” I’m on—and it happens to match yours—you’ve already missed my point. Sides are easy. They give us a jersey to wear and a team to cheer for, but they don’t actually clean up the mess on the field. This isn’t dodgeball in the middle school gym where we line up on opposite walls and pelt each other until someone cries. (Although, let’s be honest, some comment sections look exactly like that.)
The sacred things—love, grace, peace, dignity—don’t belong to one camp, one party, or one ideology. They’re bigger than that. And the second we shrink them down into something throwable—something to prove our point or “win” the argument—we’ve already broken the very thing we claim to protect. Because when it comes to love, respect, and belonging, there isn’t a winning side. Either we all win together, or we all lose together.
But I also know that nothing grows in a fight. The only thing that grows there is resentment—and possibly a stress ulcer. A whole lot more can grow in the quiet. In curiosity. In the slow, unglamorous work of listening to understand instead of listening to clap back.
Think about it. When’s the last time you changed your mind because someone yelled at you louder? Probably never. But maybe you’ve softened, shifted, or at least seen another angle because someone listened to you first. Because they treated your story as something sacred—even when they disagreed.
That’s what I want to practice. To live like I’m holding something fragile, sacred, worth protecting. Not like I’m arguing over who it belongs to.
I think about that little porcelain nativity set. It wasn’t valuable in the financial sense—we picked it up at Goodwill for $4.99—but in our house, it meant something. It was tradition. It was story. It was fragile. And in the wrong hands (looking at you, Angel and Shepherd), it was dangerously throwable. Which is ironic, really—because those two were supposed to be spreading the good news, not launching it across the living room like dodgeballs.
Our relationships, our communities, our values—they’re the same way. Fragile. Meaningful. Sacred. And absolutely not designed to be hurled across the room.
So maybe the invitation isn’t to win the argument or prove the point. Maybe the invitation is to set the sacred thing back in the manger for a moment, take a breath, and remember: it was never meant to be a weapon.
Because baby Jesus deserves better than being a projectile. And so do we.
And here’s the part I keep circling back to: when someone holds my words with care instead of throwing them back, it feels like oxygen. Like maybe the world isn’t as divided as the headlines—or the Facebook comment section—make it seem. (Side note: how did we, the generation that survived dial-up internet, end up this bad at waiting our turn to talk?)
The truth is, peace on earth probably isn’t going to break out in the comment threads of strangers. But it can break out in smaller, quieter ways—when you pause before firing off that email, when you choose curiosity over sarcasm in a family argument, when you take a deep breath and actually listen instead of reloading your next comeback. Those are little practices, but they’re the kind that rebuild trust brick by brick.
Advent is about waiting, after all. Waiting in the tension, the not-yet, the messy middle. Maybe that’s the invitation here too—less throwing, more waiting. Less rushing to be right, more holding space for peace, even if it’s just in our kitchen, our workplace, or our neighborhood.
So today, I’m trying to live more like I’m holding something sacred—and less like I’m arguing over who it belongs to. Because in the end, peace on earth starts small. It starts here.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
Leave a Reply