This is the season when masses of people make special effort to express Love. I encourage everyone to participate in this. I know that much of our efforts overemphasize materialism in “opening the presents”, and consuming extra food and drink. But it is possible for us to refine that, taking the opportunity to demonstrate and experience the real, core Love.
In the other extreme, some take advantage of “the season” for the opportunity to preach an exclusionary message that Jesus is born only to be the sacrifice for all the sins of whoever does what the preacher specifies. Either you must be punished for your state of sin in the lake of fire, or you can qualify for Jesus to placate God.
Richard Rohr said in a talk “… we make God the Father the great big ‘ogre in the sky’ who can’t love his children naturally, organically, inherently, but has to be talked into it … [We] made the great mystery of the transformational power of love into a heavenly transaction between Jesus and God the Father, in which God the Father comes out not looking very good.”
This is not the Love that Jesus revealed, and to which humanity is trying to awaken at Christmas time. I invite you to allow Love to massage that Christmas wish into your real, daily world. Jesus reveals the unconditional Love that liberates everyone to realize our membership in something far greater than ourselves or religion, and to participate in growing, expanding Goodness. Love being unconditional makes it absolutely powerful, liberating and miraculously mysterious. It is not intellectual, although it inspires us mentally and physically. We know it spiritually. Allowing ourselves to awaken to this causes positive transformation.
Transformational Power of Love
This is only talk and verbal intellect until it is meditated upon and becomes a hunger, a quest.
Quiet the cacophony of the world around you and wait for the meaning of the words “unconditional Love” to open you to possibility.
Your inner, True Self begins to sense a difference and you begin to go about your daily life wondering how this newness will alter your experience of living.
You return to your personal contemplative times and renew the sense of it, while beginning to make decisions with the new point of view.
Perhaps you are unaware of changing, but Love is transforming you, growing you into someone broader, expanding, ascending.
You grow more aware of communing with this energy which you unite with as the True Person, the One incarnated with the Spirit which creates the universe. Is it your True Self, Jesus, God, or all? Differentiation becomes less and less important.
You gradually see yourself as a member of a Whole and learn to appreciate your influence in even the smallest details. You become more compassionate toward errors and corrections, always moving on, recognizing that this transformation is part of the progression of all things, not only your initiative.
May your Christmas and Hanukkah presents, meals and parties celebrate unconditional Love expanding us as God’s universal Body.
