Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Keeping Christ in Christmas

A couple of weeks ago I started seeing magnets on the backs of cars and signs in front yards that read 'Keep Christ in Christmas".

A good reminder for sure.

Do we know what it means?  I mean REALLY; do we know what it means?

As I listen to friends recount details of horrific holiday shopping excursions it makes me feel like we really don't know how to keep Christ in Christmas.

Christmas isn't about finding the perfect gift.  YOU are the perfect gift. 

Christmas isn't about twinkling lights hung on the house and a fantastically decorated Christmas tree.  YOU are the twinkling lights; YOU are fantastically decorated with a beautiful heart.

I think if Christ was sitting at our dinner tables with us today he would tell us that Christmas is not about him at all.  Christmas isn't about his birth at all and I think he would tell us we've been getting it really really wrong for a while now.  He did not come to this planet (nor did the other thousands of masters and teachers) to become a superstar celebrity.  He didn't come to be put on a pedestal.  He came to give us a message and an example of a life lived in forgiveness.  The story goes, he lived that message right up until his last day on this planet.  Did YOU get the message?

At Christmas we listen to songs about peace on earth; we sing along.  We know all the words.  Then we get in our cars and honk at the first person who cuts us off in traffic.  We get hot and bothered when we have to wait in a long line up at the mall.  We are generous with our pennies when we see those Salvation Army bells but we aren't generous when the cashier makes a mistake on our bill.  We are easily annoyed with our families and we don't take time for ourselves to even breathe.

All of this is exactly the opposite of what keeping Christ in Christmas would look like.

I'm really only using the Christian aspect of this holiday season to make a point here.  The truth is that every Master that has ever walked the planet has given us the same message about how to live life to the fullest.  We just don't all have magnets dedicated to them.  Not that I know of anyway. 

Christ was forgiving.  Christmas is for giving.

I learned this enormous lesson this time last year.  Giving ourselves away brings peace.  It is the peace on earth that we are seeking and it's inside of ourselves.

It makes no difference to me how you celebrate your holiday or how much money you spent on gifts or whether you put up a tree or not.  It makes no difference to me.  What makes a difference to me and to the rest of us is whether or not you are finding peace within yourself.  What makes a difference to me is whether or not you are living out the forgiveness that Christ himself embodied. 

And the only reason why it makes any difference to me is because what you do with yourself you do with me.  What you bring into yourself, you bring into me.  We are here together.  We are IN it together.  You see?  Do you hear the message?  This was Christs message to us.  Compassion, love, forgiveness.  Always to everyone; all ways.  Can you do it?  Can you take the message into you and allow it to begin to blossom?  It's a wonderful thing when you do.  A truly wonderful thing.