What does Christmas mean to you?

I have been asking myself this question for the last few days. This year, in light of the economic turmoil, Christmas has been interesting. I really started to feel sort of well, sick, as I would look at all the materialism surrounding myself and the ones I love this year. I also felt more and more hope as I asked myself what Christmas really means to me.

I won't go into my entire spiritual journey here. I started as an agnostic, became a raving atheist, and now find myself a reverent, sort of new age Christian. I know people like labels, but I can't really find a convenient one to describe what I believe to be true.

I began a spiritual journey when I realized there was more to life than a personality. I have always felt a strong connection with my soul, and feel like it is the guiding force in my life, but there was a time I didn't believe in souls. The kind of Religion I was exposed to as a child represented a kind of non-thinking obedience I simply could not stomach. The idea of "God" as a male power that wielded punishment over man and especially WOMAN just did not sit well with me. Never mind the adults (mostly catholic catechism teachers) who would act like I was the devil incarnate if I asked them how they could be sure God, as they explained him, existed.

How arrogant, how faithless I was. "OK", I would say,"Please define faith for me." At that point they would give me a frustrated look that was halfway between outright contempt and hatred. I decided I was on my own in deciding these matters.

Eventually, I realized the limits of my own personality and ego through, well, good old fashioned messing up my life enough that I knew there had to be a better way......and there was. I feel I have, through years of inner searching in a sort of eastern style, finally found my Self. I can't always stay connected to my soul (often I am not), but I found it through a process of deep personal emotional work and surrendering to what I like to call the, "Life Force". I believe this "Life Force" is God, but not the pedantic God so many of our religions describe.

So where does Christmas fit in? Well......along my journey I began reading many spiritual texts, including to much of my friends surprise, the ........Bible. I became fascinated with the Gnostic's. They believed that to find God you had to search within. I was surprised to find how interested in Jesus I was. Not just from a spiritual perspective, but also from an archaeological one. What was true about Jesus and what was made up by the men who lived after him?

I could quote a bunch of sources here, but that would be more appropriate for a book, not a blog. What I basically found was that Jesus was an amazingly loving, intelligent, fascinating man. He was not meek, but audacious. He was not closed, but open. He was not lacking, but abundant. He was not a savior, but a teacher. This is my own interpretation.

So if Christmas represents the birth of a man who many believe to have been the Son of God, which to me means he embodied the "Life Force" in the purest form, then I have to celebrate that. How wonderful! What an example to all of us.

I would like to leave you with two things Jesus talked about to consider:

"The meek shall inherit the Earth"

What is the Earth, when compared to the Kingdom of Heaven? Do you really want to be meek?
Is the Earth, as Jesus saw it, really all that valuable?

I know this quote is inaccurate but it is something like; " For He who has little, even that which he has shall be taken from Him. For Him who has plenty, even more shall be given."

Could that actually mean that people who live in a state of gratitude will feel abundant, and those who see themselves as lacking will lose everything?

"Judge Not, Lest Ye be Judged" - So true. When we fail to forgive (correct our perception of others) we are ultimately condemning ourselves.

So tonight I celebrate the ideas of Jesus as I see them. Arrogant....maybe. But who really knows. I choose to see him as a man who brought peace, forgiveness, and Godliness to Earth. These qualities still exist in each of us....and I am thankful for it.

Obama Has Some Good Qualities

I know I have been very critical of Obama and his policies, and this probably will not change. However, everybody has some redeeming qualities.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/12/23/am.obama.shirtless.cnn

Parenting

You know, I am always fascinated by children. They are so present. I mean they live in the NOW. One of my favorite books is Eckart Tolle's "The Power of Now". If there is one thing you can do for you children that will transform your life and theirs, it is to be present.

Being a "stay at home mom", which I pretty much have been for the last 7 years, taught me the value of presence. When I was working full time as a bank manager and working on my MBA I thought I was the busiest person in the world. I was wrong. It didn't take long for the Universe to serve me up a nice piece of humble pie. Having a baby blew my mind. Literally. The fact is, my mind needed to be blown. I never realized how lost I was in my thoughts before the demands of motherhood forced me to be present.

What exactly do I mean by presence? How often are you doing one thing, like loading the dishwasher, while you are thinking about something else? Perhaps you are even "listening" to your spouse, while you are thinking of that kitchen floor that needs to be mopped. When is the last time you were not thinking, but simply being? When you were utterly present in the task before you.

I realized, at some point, that all my children needed was love, attention , and presence. (Food helps) But seriously, that is all they wanted. When they were stressed, it was usually because I was stressed, and not present. When they threw tantrums or misbehaved it was usually because they had perhaps been around me all day, but never had my present attention. I was lost in my thoughts about the world. Maybe it was about money, or my lost career, or a recent fight me and my husband had had, or what I to needed to buy at the grocery store. Whatever it was, (the thought of the moment) it was competing with them for my present attention.

I can hear you all already. "But kids can't have attention all the time." "Kids need to be independent." etc, etc. You are correct. The truth is - the need very little attention - if, when they are getting the attention, you are present with every cell of your being. If your mind is quiet and you are totally focused on them, they need very little actual time.

If you play a game with them and are thinking about something else while you do it, you might as well have not done it at all. They will still be needy. This is what I would like to say to parents who say they spend so much time and attention on their children, but their kids always want more. I would like to ask them: Were you really and truly present with your child? Was your mind clear when you were speaking o them or listening to them?


The next topic I would love to talk about is why adults avoid presence like it is the plague.
I plan on writing more about this topic in future posts. I would love your input.

Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas season!