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Today's
Meditation:
There
most definitely is a spirit that permeates the Christmas
holiday season. And that spirit is the spirit that
we give to it, the spirit that we bring to the day, and
not whatever the day happens to bring to us.
Christmas, more than any other time of the year, acts as a
mirror to us that shows us what we're giving to the world,
and it does so not in a loud, clear way, but in subtle,
small ways.
Christmas
offers us a look into ourselves as we decide what gifts to
give to others, as we ponder the love that's in our world,
as we listen to the messages of hope and love and peace in
the songs and the stories of the holiday. During
this time of year we decide what spirit we're going to
bring to the day, and when the season passes we decide
whether we're going to allow that spirit to stay with us
for the rest of the year, or if we're going to leave that
spirit behind us and focus more on self and less on others
as the days go by.
When
Valentine's Day or Labor Day come by, we take our day off
or get our gifts and then forget about the day when the
next morning comes around. But Christmas transcends
the day, for it's much more than just an observation of an
event or an idea. Even among all the materialism and
greed and marketing that we see during the holiday, we
also feel the specialness of the time, and we recognize
that there's much more to today than just calling it a
holiday. The spirit of Christmas can be
life-transforming if we allow it to "permeate every
part of our lives," and not look at it as just another day off from work or another opportunity to get
some gifts.
As
today goes on, we decide what our focus shall be-- on the
gifts and the goings-on, or on the spirit. And
tomorrow morning we'll make the same decisions.
Allowing the spirit of Christmas to be a major part of who
we are can certainly turn our lives into something very
positive, and possibly even magical, as we focus on peace
and love and the holiness of the holiday.
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