This weekend, there will no doubt be smoke billowing from ovens and stoves all across our community, city and country as we prepare to both make and feast on meals we hope to share with family and friends.  

For most of us this tradition is nothing new for our families as the holidays reach their peak.  

What is new for many of us is doing so under the spectre of a different kind of burning taking place in the world.  

In lower Manhattan, fire still burns in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

In Afghanistan, fires burn in the caves and mountains once or still traveled by Osama bin Laden.  

In Israel and Palestine, hate for one by the other blazes new trails of death and paths away from peace.

We now endure what many parts of the world have experienced for decades as we celebrated peace during their times of war.

War in all forms inherently brings death, destruction and pain, but with its end there is always the hope that follows.

Hope for healing and prosperity for certain, but also the hope that this conflict will be the last. Sadly in the short history of man, those prayers for no more war have never been answered, but what has come to us are the lessons of tragedy.  

First and foremost, to take nothing for granted in life since death is always an unexpected visitor. Second, use the time you do have to make a difference.  Third, love the people closest to you as much as you can.

This weekend will be the last opportunity you will probably have to buy those presents and food for you and yours.

 But before you get on line to pick up this or that, do some additional planning to make a difference.  In our communities there are a number of people who suffered loss because of the Sept. 11th attacks.  

They lost family, their jobs or maybe their fortitude against fear.  

We either know who they are or we know someone who knows them.  

Finding them is maybe one or two phone calls away.  

When we do, we can "love the people closest to us" by showing them what real love is.  

We can do so by opening our hearts to these people who still sting from the attack against all of us.

Invite a family to share a meal, buy a toy for a child who lost a parent or whose parent lost a job, and encourage firefighters and/or police officers who still protect us despite the pain of their losses.

The gesture doesn’t have to be grandiose, heavy-handed or expensive.  

Just consider one act of kindness this weekend.  By making an extension of ourselves to people who we previously would have no reason to reach out to, we can give ourselves something in the process.  

We can say we contributed to rebuilding and recovery of what was lost to many us on Sept. 11th — trust.  

That trust not only lost in everything from things inanimate like buildings, airplanes, and the economy but also trust in human beings. It was in fact people who planned, carried out and even celebrated the acts. People with a different sense of right and wrong for sure but still people, whose excuse included the notion that we are a selfish, greedy society that preys on the unfortunate and under-privileged.

We can carve into that characterization by giving just a little of ourselves during the first holiday season of the post Sept. 11th era.

We don’t owe this to the world, which is comprised of many people who hate just for the sake of hating.

We owe it to ourselves to start clearing up any doubt of that notion in our own hearts and minds.  It will begin to create or maintain a feeling in us, a movement we should pass on to others now and to generations to come.  

We should remember that buildings, concrete and steel were not the targets of the terrorists that day.  The targets were our freedoms, our humanity and our way of life.  

They targeted what to them were symbols of greed and power but along the way thousands of people got in their way. By using this time to reach out to others, we show they missed their mark.  

They must have had us confused with another America.