In This Season of Light, Be the Light
I can’t believe it’s Christmas again. It seems just yesterday it was Christmas.
I’ve been getting into the mood, in the mood for these holidays, having a wonderful, special holiday season. And for me, this business of having a Merry Christmas isn’t an automatic kind of thing. But then, none of life is.
I have a belief and that is that every season of our lives can be appropriated for good. I believe that we can use everything that confronts us along the life path for good. We just have to put some energy and planning into it. We just have to see ourselves as the authors of our peace and happiness.
One of the reasons that this Christmas season is so hard for some of us is that it’s a season when we expect; we long to be taken care of. We reflect back to childhood days when Christmas was staged for us. We were oriented to this holiday and we were extended expectations that here is a time in life when others, Santa Claus, mom, dad, whomever, will make me feel good. Here is a time when I can sit back and be taken care of, magically entertained.
The advertising supports these expectations. He’s giving her a ring. They’re all gathered around the warm fire. They’re bundle in the horse drawn sleigh, the sleigh bells ringing. She’s home for the holiday. And it all seems so effortless, all served up to these fortunate ones. So beautiful, so peaceful.
A challenge of growing up is coming to grips with the truth that we and only we are the authors of our happiness and peace. No one has assumed the role of entertaining us, taking care of us.
I can remember the day that my dad said to me, “You’re OYO, on your own.” What a frightening thought that was when first I heard it. “Don’t tell me that,” I thought. “Don’t tell me there isn’t at least one other that is charged with the duty to take care of me, make me happy, make my life good, make it wonderful and peaceful.”
If we are passive, if we wait on life, on the good that life offers, to come to us, we will never find it. The good in life, the good in every season, the good that these holidays offer can be ours but only if we go out and seize it.
If I’m passive now as the holidays approach; if I set back and expect to be entertained, taken care of, I can be sure I’ll have a bad holiday season. It’s true what they say about tis the season. This indeed is the season. Like all the seasons of life it’s a season that calls for our best. And if we respond with our best, it becomes a wonderful season.
Recently I attended a program inspired by a woman who for many years had suffered emotionally. Not just in the holiday season, in lots of seasons of the year she struggled with difficult emotions. And in the midst of her struggle she decided to try to better understand why life was so often so hard, so difficult for her. Out of her work grew a movement that is spreading throughout the mental health community.
What this amazing woman did was in the depths of her despair, she decided to get analytical about the business of living well and she developed for herself a plan for good living and in so doing put together a template for others to do the same.
In the trying and difficult times of life as well as in the ordinary days of life, this woman dedicated herself to living close to her plan.
Now, many years after she developed this strategy for living well, she has studied thousands of living well plans that others have developed using her paradigm and identified some common components to these plans and in one of her books suggests that all who are seeking to make more of their life experience consider putting together a plan like this with consideration for these common ingredients.
Coming to know what you require to live well and enjoy life and living according to these requirements is important, particularly important when you are approaching known difficult zones of life which these holidays are for some of us like me.
Theses common ingredients she identified, roughly paraphrased, are:
Treasure, take care of your body. Eat well, rest, exercise, keep up with your medical care.
Treat yourself as well as you would an honored guest in your home. Take care of and keep the space you occupy in order. You are the most important guest you will ever welcome into your home. Fill your home with music and art so that it speaks to your soul. And do this whether you live with others or live alone. Because either way somebody really important is present.
Spend some time each week expanding your capabilities…learn an instrument, a language, take a course. Never stop growing and developing your capabilities.
Do all you can to find and make your work meaningful
Have fun, play often and don’t forget the simple pleasures, a walk, a sunset.
Avoid toxins, particularly those of the interpersonal variety.
Don’t let life’s obstacles destroy your spirit.
And most of all keep a list of people, both near and far, personally known as well as those you know only because of their plight such as the hungry, the homeless etc., and practice active mindfulness in relation to theses people. Give them your love, your caring and share with them. Because giving is the final key to unlock the goodness that our lives can claim. Giving, being mindful of others is the expression of our deepest and truest nature and it’s what causes us to be at peace with this mystery we call life.
I believe that living well, whatever the season, requires this kind of intention and I believe that the difficult times in life require it even more.
For me this holiday season can be a difficult time and that’s because of some painful associations. The three of us, two small children, the first Christmas after my wife died. The Christmas six years ago when Cathy died. And other painful associations.
So I anticipate the difficulty of this part of the life path and step up my efforts at living well. I take extra care with how I treat myself. I make myself a guest in my home, in my space. I look for more times to play and have fun. I embrace more often the simple pleasures of life. I keep the music playing, fire in the fireplace, candles lit. And I concentrate a lot more on practicing mindfulness, being in touch with, extending love and caring to those whom I have chosen to be mindful of.
And I let this be my all-consuming orientation to life. And as a result I’ll have a great holiday.
And so instead of coping with this time of year, I now embrace it. I claim the special ness of this season. From my Christian tradition I claim the beautiful story of a loving God reaching out placing among us another guide, someone to show us the way, how to make life the gift it can be. I warm myself with the imagery of the all-powerful One placing His guide among us in a quiet, humble way. A little baby, poor, born in a barn, a manager His bed. And like others He showed us the way, reminded us who we are, His brothers and sisters, born of the same God that he called God.
I take my cue from this story, noticing that it was about active, proactive involvement. The participants in the first Christmas were active players. They were trekking in the cold night to Bethlehem. They were out looking for food and lodging. They were caught up in an adventure full of excitement and requiring their active participation. They were ushering in new ideas about love, about peace, about who we are and about how to make life full and meaningful.
This holiday season can be meaningful and exciting for you and me too. It can be a season that we do more than cope with. It can be a season that we embrace and participate in and as a result find real joy and meaning. And it can be that way by our acting on the belief that we have it in our power to make all the seasons of our lives good ones. Realizing that we are equipped by our Maker with the power to bring goodness into our lives regardless of the obstacles and as a result into the lives of those around us, be they friends or strangers. And we do this always through giving good care to ourselves so that we can give good care and give fully to others.
So that’s my formula for making this a good holiday/Christmas season. It’s the same formula for every season, embraced more strongly given the emotional intensity of this one for me.
Take care of yourself.
Make yourself an honored guest wherever you are.
Keep learning, growing becoming. Para me, ahora, yo esta estudiar espanole.
Make your work meaningful.
Have fun.
Avoid toxins, particularly those of the interpersonal variety.
Don’t let the obstacles defeat your spirit.
Practice active mindfulness. Be actively mindful of others.
And remember this active mindfulness, this spirit of giving, that’s a lot of what this season is all about. It’s the giving that after all is what unlocks the magic that every season of life offers us. It’s the giving. That’s what brings us the joy that this season and all of life has to offer.
Several weeks ago my sons suggested we do it differently this year, that we gather in Charleston, John’s new home and have Christmas there. And so we started putting together a special time. We reached out to friends who were, so to speak, at loose ends, not sure where to go for the holidays and invited them to join us. We decided to do the gift thing differently. We decided to each take a sum of money, take the larger portion of it and give it away, taking care to learn something about the organizations and causes we gave to. And on Christmas morning we decided to share with the others something about the organizations and causes we had chosen to support. And then we decided to use the smaller portion and buy gifts for ourselves; after having first drawn names. We then are planning to wrap these gifts with a gift tag indicating they are for us, from the ones whose names we had drawn. In this way the suspense and excitement will be in not finding out what you got from someone but in finding out what you had given another.
The good news is you can embrace this season in your own special ways and declare with joy, “It really tis the season.” You can count yourself among those warmed by the fire, the sleigh bells, the warmth of friends, the warmth of the season whatever the tradition that speaks to you.
I have a prayer for us. Will you join me.
Dear God, we come here in this time of reflection and stillness and take full notice of this special season. It’s special because it reminds us that you did not leave us alone in this mysterious circumstance called life. You are with us in this journey and you lead us, showing us the way to make it the good and meaningful journey that it can be; the kind of journey in which we grow and become more of who you gave us the opportunity to be.
Thank you for coming among us that special night so long ago in a barn in Bethlehem as well as all the other many times.
Please help us not only to follow your guidance but also in doing so to become your guides for others. Thank you.
