Celebrating Diwali With Friends

You want to change your life? Start with your mind.

In my home we are secular, my partner and I both come frome families that are Christian. One of the core tenants of my upbringing is that you love everyone, and any interactions with “non-believers” is to bring them to Christ. Everyone who is not Christian is lost and it is our job to help them find their way. I rejected that belief system in my early 30s it was one of the most important shift I could have personally make for how I perceive people. During that time period of my life I became a lot less judgmental of people, and sought to truly know and understand people for who they are and want to be; not for ulterior motive of “getting them saved them.”

Perception is reality.

As I have evolved as a member of our human family, I realized we are more alike than we are different. This is one of my core belief systems and tenants that I live by. As Lady J develops and grow, we will expose her to people, beliefs, cultures and traditions that are are not of our own. In my own life experience as a child and teen, through travel & communion with others you see the shared humanity that we all have.

As military brat, I personally believe, this is why I am at my core more accepting of people who do not believe like I do, or see the world from my lens. I have had the privileged of always having relationships with those different ethnicities and cultures from me. However, as I changed my perspective on how I viewed myself, my spirituality and how I perceived others, I drop quite a bit of my conscious and unconscious judgmental attitude(I am still growing, so I am by no means claiming to have arrived at enlightenment). As I changed, the nature of the relationships with those different from myself lost a lot of superficialness. When the shit the fan, I can call on these ladies just like I can call on my girlfriends of my own shared background. We have cried together over miscarriages, compared childhoods, and how we relate to our marriage partners. We discuss openly geo-politics, share frustrations about jobs, institutionalized racism we have faced and currently face. We have broken bread, shared holidays and gone on health journeys together. we are FRIENDS.

Celebrating Diwali

I am fortunate to have a couple of close friends that are Indian-American decent, in this particular group of friends all are non-religious, though their families grew up Hindi. I ask the friend who still lives near by I asked her about going to the Diwali festival this year (we all went together a few years ago), but it was sold out this year. So we improvised and she offered to hosted a small non-religious Diwali celebration in her home for us and it was fun! The was a brief sharing of what Diwali meant for them and their family.

We had dinner and sparklers for the kids. As we walked into their home there were small candle lights down leading us down the hall, going up stairs and out to the patio area of the home. Lady J was the youngest of the crew last night and the kids made sure to involve her in every snack, game and activity.

Diwali

I am not going over Diwali in detail, I am not the expert and this holiday is not apart of my lived, loved and life experience. We celebrate Diwali because I want to share a holiday that is important to my friends and I want Lady J to learn to value what is important to others as well. However I have linked some resources for those who want to understand the holiday along with tools for kids.

Practical Steps for my 3 year old.

Today, is Diwali, Lady J and I will go on a walk, play some, go to school and have a pretty chill day.

1. However the book for today is baby first Diwali.
2. We will take time to read it and go over the pictures from last night.
3. Watch videos that talk about Diwali that is age appropriate for her.

If this is your first time reading anything from me, I would like to warn you, I grew up on Sesame street and share sesame street as a learning aid for Lady J on the REGULAR. We will watch videos Sesame street celebrating Diwali along with videos that celebrate the difference in cultures and how it brings us together.

I am glad she had fun last night, my hope is that exposing Lady J early and often to all the world has to offer, is that she will love without abandon, and see people for who they are, not just what we perceive them to be. That she is able to be solid and true friendships, because she see the person as well as the culture.

However, these are just my thoughts.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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