Celebrating Christmas

What does it mean to celebrate Christmas?

Is it all about parties, get-togethers, shopping, giving and receiving gifts, cooking, baking, hangovers, and bills to pay afterward?


I was struck by a quote from Mary Baker Eddy from her article, “What Christmas means to me.” She wrote, “I love to observe Christmas in quietude, humility, benevolence, charity, letting good will towards man, eloquent silence, prayer, and praise express my conception of Truth’s appearing.”


The words, “…express my conception of Truth’s appearing,” grabbed my attention.


Christmas is about far more than the birth of baby Jesus. It’s about the message of spiritual truth Jesus brought to humanity from God. It was not solely Jesus, a physical person, who transformed the world, but the Christ, Truth, Jesus taught and lived. The two are inseparable, but to catch the true meaning of Christmas, one must think beyond a material birth to the divine idea that appeared through the life and teaching of Jesus. The divine idea included the truth that we are all spiritual, we are all children of God, loved and upheld by divine grace, just as Jesus proved and taught us how to find.


To celebrate Christmas is to live true to our spiritual selfhood as Jesus so ably exemplified, and to let it appear vividly through our thoughts, words, and actions.


This is why I believe Eddy wrote, “I love to observe Christmas in quietude, humility, benevolence, charity,…” because these forms of observance allow thought to get still with God and discern the appearing of Christ, or Truth, within. It cultivates a ready state of mind that allows the true meaning of Christmas to surface.


Then she outlined the outward form this appearing takes in her life as, “…letting good will towards man, eloquent silence, prayer, and praise express my conception of Truth’s appearing.”


Christmas is not a social event. It’s not the 25th of December. It’s not about attending parties, events, and programs. It’s not about living up to the commercial and consumer expectations of secular society. It’s about the appearing of Christ in our lives and examples.


To follow through with this high vision, I’ve been asking myself, “How is Truth appearing in my life this holiday? What is the outward evidence of it? How are other people’s lives being positively affected by it?”


I’ve made some changes in the way I think about Christmas. I want to be a better influence on others. I want to help others more effectively, and I’ve decided I need less for myself.


What’s your vision for Christmas?

Footprints in the sand

Many of you have read this poem, but many have not. It's one of my favorites.


Footprints in the Sand

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed
he was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Across the sky flashed scenes from his life
For each scene he noticed two sets of
footprints in the sand: one belonging
to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flasehd before him,
He looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of
his life there was only one set of footprints.

He also noticed that it happened at the very
lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and he
questioned the Lord about it:

"Lord, You said that once I decided to follow
You, You'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when
I needed You most You would leave me."

The Lord replied:
"My precious child,
I love you and would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."

The real meaning of Christmas

As I was shoveling 4’ of snow off the back deck of our cabin last evening, I had a lot of time to think. Demands on my practice led me to wrestle more with the real meaning of Christmas.

As I mentioned in a blog posting a few days ago, many people call into my practice this time of year upset and depressed over the holiday season. They do not feel the spirit of Christmas. They feel lonely, forgotten, isolated perhaps, or, on the other side of the same coin, stressed out by getting caught up into buying things, managing debt, overeating, dealing with relatives, or trying to do too much in too little time.

As a long list of objections people have with Christmas rolled through my mind, an inner voice protested, “This ought not to be! Christmas is not about accelerating socializing, partying, eating, spending, buying, coping and pleasing personal sense. Christmas is all about the coming of Christ and the fulfillment of Christ’s promise, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’” (Luke 2:14)

Aw, yes, I especially liked the promise of peace.

Christmas is all about peace! A bright light turned on in my thought. Not a superficial, turn down the material noise and dwell in artificial material calm, type of peace. But a deep-rooted profound anchored fixedness within that comes from knowing one is a precious loved spiritual child of God.

I often watch people seek Christmas in the things they do, the places they vacation or the families they visit. But it seems to me that Christmas is not found in geography, society, or consumerism. It’s found in a mental atmosphere of prayerfulness and spiritual mindedness. And this environment of peace is equally accessible by one and all whether they sit at a dinner table for one or find themselves in a room of bustling human activity.

Isn't Christmas about the peace of God taking over human consciousness, purging it of strain and stress, despair and depression, and overflowing it with gratitude, heavenly joy and love unbounded? I pondered.

Christ has come. Christ is here. Christ is leading humanity to a higher hope than any idealized temporal human scenario could ever deliver. Christ leads us right to heaven where joys are eternal, companionship with God’s family members complete, and love unfailing.

Heaven is home, and Christ takes us there.

On the eve of Christmas Day 2008, I wish you the very best Christ has to offer, and pray the peace of Christ so permeate your every thought and action, that after the day comes and goes, you march on feeling closer to God than ever before.

Merry Christmas! And peace, good will to you all.

Oh, and yes, I did finish shoveling the deck. It was a very productive time with God, indeed.

Much love...

Christ in you

Before leaving earth, Jesus told his disciples,

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. John 14:18-20 NIV

In the above quote, Jesus is talking about his material disappearance and spiritual appearance to the human consciousness as Christ, untied to material form. And he said, “On that day...”, or when we understand the power in his life to be Christ, pure divine Mind, we “…will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

Think about the implications of this promise…

When Jesus restored legs to the lame, eyes to the blind, and ears to the deaf, it was not any human power that cured the ill. It was Christ at work through Jesus.

In the above promise, Jesus is telling his followers that the same Christ at work in him is at work in us too. We need only to realize it.

The same voice and curative power that commanded, “Rise, and walk,” and then restored crippled legs to soundness is in us.

Do you hear the voice? Are you aware of its presence within you? It’s there, and through it you can be healed and heal the sick around you.

The power of Christ is God. Christ is in you, and you are in Christ.

What are you waiting for? You’ve got it all...

God so loved the world

I’ve often puzzled over the meaning of this Bible verse:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

I believe a common interpretation of this verse is that God so loved the material world and mortals within it, that he sacrificed his only son, Jesus, on the cross, to show us how much He loved us, and made this sacrificial offering of Jesus to save all those who believed on the risen Savior.

I’ve struggled with this interpretation because my concept of God is one of a loving Father-Mother, and a loving Father-Mother does not sacrifice His son to pain and suffering.

Christian Science explains that it was the human material concept of Christ called Jesus that suffered on the cross. It was not the Son of God that suffered. The Son of God was the Christ that Jesus reflected in his healing ministry. The Son of God was not a physical body that suffered at the hands of mortal tyrants and terrorists. The Christ is spiritual, immortal, and divine, forever living in Mind, not in matter. And we find our spiritual selfhood in Christ too.

So, in trying to understand the original spiritual meaning of the above verse, I came up with:

“God’s love is revealed in His Son, the Christ, in which we find eternal Life.”

I’m still thinking on this verse, but feel I'm getting closer to the original spiritual meaning before it was translated.

God has given us His Son, the true idea of Himself, which serves as the example of who we are in His image and likeness. (Please excuse using the male gender here, for the word Her works just as well.) And we have Christ, or God’s direction and guidance at work in our lives, to lead us to eternal life.

Christ never died, and is never at the mercy of hate, evil or death. This is the example Jesus’ resurrection left for us to learn from, and we can faithfully follow.

“The invisible Christ was imperceptible to the so-called personal senses, whereas Jesus appeared as a bodily existence. This dual personality of the unseen and the seen, the spiritual and material, the eternal Christ and the corporeal Jesus manifest in flesh, continued until the Master's ascension, when the human, material concept, or Jesus, disappeared, while the spiritual self, or Christ, continues to exist in the eternal order of divine Science, taking away the sins of the world, as the Christ has always done, even before the human Jesus was incarnate to mortal eyes.” Mary Baker Eddy