While diabetes may affect the way we celebrate our holidays, those holidays should never be about diabetes. Holidays are about family, about G-d, about freedom, about love... not about chronic diseases and disease management.
That being said, I sometimes find the holidays give me greater insight into my diabetes, and ways to deal with it. While changes in diet (rarely good for my numbers!) are certainly a component of most of my religious and family holiday celebrations, when I am "properly introspective" -- that is to say, doing the sort of "soul searching" that one is supposed to do when approaching these holidays -- I find many ways to put myself "at peace" with this condition, and to turn it from a negative into a positive. I believe some Christians refer to this as "giving it up to G-d (or Jesus)"...
Last year, my Passover theme was gratitude -- for the medical technologies that allow us to survive, even thrive, with diabetes; for the friendships that I have made and grown through a connection with diabetes; for the "wake-up call" causing me to pay more
attention to my own health; and for the opportunities that I have had to connect with, and help, others.
There's really no predetermination if my holidays will have a secular "theme" to them; it just happens. Sometimes that coincidence
will have the physical sense of the Divine Presence; sometimes it won't. I'm not convinced that it really matters, other than
that there's something... (exciting? melancholy? addictive? seductive?) about that feeling of Divine Presence. What matters is
that these fugues bring a greater depth of meaning to the holiday, and the holiday brings a greater depth of meaning to the theme at hand.
I'm not sure I've really got a theme this year. Passover is all about liberation from enslavement, about the development of a nation out of what was arguably a disjointed group of disgruntled slaves, about leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar, about
faith in the future...
As a libertarian, I see themes of liberty in liberation, motifs of activism in our willingness to stand up to Pharaoh and to leave Egypt. But it's not just about politics. The modern service asks us to believe that until we have all been liberated, none of us are free. And perhaps none of us truly are free... However, most of us have the freedom -- the ability -- some might even say, the obligation -- to free others. Not totally, completely, boundlessly -- but
to some degree, in some aspect of those others' lives. Whether it's a discussion of diets and medications, an exhortation to
see a doctor, or a product review, our willingness to discuss diabetes and diabetes management with others liberates us all
from the isolation of "silent suffering", and through discussion and education, liberates those who come to us, or who are brought to us through Destiny, Deity, or Fate to openly discuss their health, and through discussion and follow-on action, improve it.
I offer to my Christian friends that Easter, being about resurrection and salvation, can be approached in a similar manner. Our self-care resurrects our health and saves our physical lives (or at least the quality of those lives), our openness about our diabetes provides role models -- both good and bad -- for others to follow (or to not-follow), our sufferings and temptations remind us of Christ's sufferings and temptations, and our personal experiences with diabetes lead us to be better Stewards when we are Required to assist others through some part of their diabetes path.
(I am less certain about ways to adapt these same approaches into other religious Paths; perhaps those of you who follow those Paths may consider, and then enlighten the rest of us.)
Our holidays are not about diabetes -- but diabetes can add dimension and depth to them. If that brings us closer to G-dliness in any of Its Forms, then perhaps that's a Good Thing.
