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Christmas Musings:

I love Christmas. The celebration, the decorations, gathering with family and friends that you haven't seen for ages, the inspiration to help your neighbor and do nice things in the world, the cookies, the songs, the movies. I love that it was the inspiration to come together with fellow volunteers and sing and dance and play games and laugh and watch movies in Kazanluck. I love that, because of Christmas, I get to spend a few days with my grandparents and see my relatives. I don't love the stress of it, the preoccupation with money and 'stuff', the overeating, the way it's sometimes used as an excuse to not have to be loving for the rest of the year.

Beyond the current playing out of the Christmas holidays, there's the story of it, the initial inspiration for celebrating Christmas...it's called the birth of Christ. I love the story...it's a fabulous story...I love hearing, reading, and thinking about the story, but I can't say I believe it. I don't believe it because, to me, it implies that Christ was born once, on this one day...December 25th, about 2000 years ago. I don't believe that.

I believe Christ is here...all the time, every minute, every second of every day, in every single one of us. To me, Jesus was one who became aware of the Christ within him and showed us the potential of that which we can all become if we open our hearts and close our eyes to our incessant desire for material things. Christ is not born. Christ is. We can become aware of Christ...of Christ within us, of Christ within each other, of Christ within every single situation we encounter, and, as we do become aware of Christ, as we awaken to the possibility of what we can be, of what we've always been, the world becomes a much brighter, more loving, more amazing place than we can possibly imagine. This awakening can happen any day and every day.

To me, the story of Jesus is a metaphor, a powerful metaphor of the awakening to Christ, a metaphor which I base my life on. In order to reach the truth, though, perhaps we have to reach beyond the metaphor, beyond the story. Christ is too big to be confined in one metaphor, in one story, in one day of the year, in the periphery of one human mind. God is too big to be confined in one metaphor, in one story, in one day of the year, in the periphery of one human mind. Perhaps every day has the potential to be Christmas...not in terms of the songs, the movies, the presents, but in terms of the possibility to become aware of how amazing and divine we truly are, deep in the core of our being...every single one of us, regardless of eye color, hair color, teeth color, place of birth, family situation, work, etc.

I beckon you, dear reader, to open your heart as you look out into the world, and know that you're perfectly divine, no matter what, and perfectly loved, no matter what, on this day and every day. What does that mean? Don't ask me, because I couldn't say, but look deep in the core of your heart, and you may find that, somewhere within you, you know exactly what it means.

Happy Holidays to All!!