CHRISTMAS: Someone With Skin On

CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS

Black Friday.  Cyber Monday.

We celebrate Christmas but often not from a Christian perspective.

If people enjoyed giving and receiving gifts, 

it might make Christmas healing in some way.

But most do not.  

Many feel obligated to spend too much for too many.

Is it because we have forgotten to be thankful and filled with awe at the gift of Christ, 

at the gift of our being able to love even if we do not feel loved?

A young boy kept coming out of his bedroom during a lightning storm 

to stand at his parents' bedroom door.

"No need to be afraid, honey," said the sleepy mother.  "God is with you."

"I need someone with skin on," he sobbed.

We all do at some point in our lives.  

Perhaps that is why God came to us wearing a human body --

 to give us someone with skin on.

But what if we do not believe in Christ 

or any God during Christmas?

For one month out of 12, 

Christmas Season gives so many a chance to bless those around us 

in ways that warm not only the receiver but the giver as well.

Giving someone a needed gift is like giving them a fragrant rose.  

Some of the perfume stays with you.

If for one month out of the year, 

we find ourselves remembering the magic and innocence of childhood dreams --

Christmas has still given us 

a special present.

WISHING ALL OF YOU 

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE and its MAGIC of THE THRESHOLD

There are moments that happen that change how you look on life and on what is and is not possible.  

  

You are never the same afterwards.  

 The Nativity was one of those times.

 There is even a word for this situation: “Liminality.” 

“Liminality” is the word for the threshold moment: 

from the Latin root limin, meaning the centerline of the doorway.

  

Liminality is the moment of crossing over. 

It describes the transitional phase of personal change, 

where one is neither in an old state of being nor a new, 

and not quite aware of the implications of the event. 

All the stages of life include liminality. 

Life is nothing but moments of crossing over. 

Liminality is why we celebrate Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve but not other holidays’ eves.

We celebrate Christmas Eve 

because Jesus is traditionally thought to have been born at midnight.  

And we celebrate New Year’s Eve because midnight is when the year changes. 

Christmas Eve is a threshold moment.

We can choose to stay on the other side of the moment, 

refusing to enter and accept what gifts await us.

After all, for most of the world there is still no room in the Inn for He who breathed the world into existence.

Christmas Eve is the time to reflect on what awaits us beyond whatever threshold we choose to cross ...

to reflect on what thresholds we thought would always be there but now are gone, 

along with the mortal hearts that waited for us beyond them.

Whatever you believe, 

it can be a healing thing to take Christmas Eve to reflect on all the gifts given to you this past year

and on what needs exist in your surroundings that you can be an agent of healing by meeting. 

Christmas Eve revives the wonder of childhood 

where snowflakes sing on their way down to the ground, 

where faeries ice skate on bird baths, 

and magic waits for us to open the door of our hearts to let it in.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE, 

MY FRIENDS!

BEWARE THE HOLI-DAZE!

Even sugar-charged Ratatoskr has fallen victim to the dreaded HOLI-DAZE!  

(He is currently riding with me on one of my blood runs, having just collapsed after telling his last Christmas joke:

"Did you hear about the dyslexic Devil worshiper who sold his soul to Santa?")

SO: 
HOW CAN YOU AVOID THE HOLI-DAZE?

1.) REMEMBER THE REASON FOR THE SEASON:

The Great Mystery's Light visited our world in the human form of a tiny infant.

Take a moment to reflect that that very Light might reside in the hurrying body of the person next to you, 

that very Light formed the stars and the seas and the birds of the air.

Breathe in deeply and pause to soak in the wonder of His caring for the sparrows of the field ... 

and you  ... and what it cost Him.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MT8DNLY

 2.) SLOW DOWN AND SMELL THE MISTLETOE

And the cinnamon and the chestnuts and the turkey 

and all of the other delicious smells, beautiful sights, and familiar sounds 

that have become symbols of the joy of the holiday season.

Enjoy it in the way it was meant to be enjoyed, 

by relaxing and sharing quality time with family and friends. The rest is just window dressing.

3.) SLEEP

Don't allow the hustle and bustle of the season to cause you to sacrifice sleep. 

It's normal during the holidays to have more on your to-do list than usual, 

but that shouldn't result in cutting SLEEP from that list!

Sleep is restorative. 

It's the time when your body replenishes itself at a cellular level 

and repairs itself from the damage of mental stress, physical strain, infection, sun exposure, and pollutants. 

Without enough sleep, 

our minds and bodies don't function as well as they could, which makes us less productive.

And sleep even aids in LOSING WEIGHT!
http://www.webmd.com/diet/sleep-and-weight-loss

SO SLEEP MORE & WEIGH LESS!!



4.) AIM FOR PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION!

When you expect perfection in your holiday preparations, 

expect a lot of added and unnecessary stress and fatigue as well. 

No battle ever went as planned -- 

ask Napoleon.  

And Christmas can be a BATTLE!

If you're planning to host a party, why do you need to prepare a major feast? 

Why not try an assortment of easy-to-make side dishes or appetizers? 

Or why not consider sharing the load by making the event a pot luck? 

Most holiday guests feel compelled to bring something anyway, so why not let them bring a dish?

5.) PLAN A SILENT NIGHT

Block it in your calendar as if it were a visit from the Pope.

Plan a night for just you.  

Listen to your favorite music no matter if it is POLKA!  

Dance by yourself if the whim takes you.

Whatever would heal you in your down time, do it.

Even when you are alone, 

you are not alone 

if you love:

 6.) ELF YOURSELF

Or your boss.  Or your friends.  

Laughter has been around for awhile now.  There's a reason for that.  

Laughter heals!

Mark Twain has young Satan ask:

"Will a day come when your race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them--and by laughing at them destroy them?

 For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably only one really effective weapon--laughter. 

Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug,--

push it a little-- crowd it a little--weaken it a little, century by century: 

but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.
 
- "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts



7.) START AND END WITH GRATITUDE

In a sense THANKSGIVING starts the HOLIDAY season and there is WISDOM in that.

If you are not grateful for what you have,

 you will soon find yourself with even less.

Remember:
Somewhere in this world someone is happy with less than what you have.

The way to start and end the day is 

to pause and list the things and people that have made and make your day better just by being in your life.

You may have lost some things, beloved persons in your life -- give yourself permission to grieve.

Take ten minutes to feel shitty.

Then 

THINK OF HOW LUCKY YOU WERE TO HAVE THEM AT ALL --

HOW DIFFERENT A PERSON YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN WITHOUT THEM.

Decide then and there that at least for Christmas, 

you will be a healing presence in at least one person's life -- 

even if it is only to let some harried driver in the crowded lane ahead of you.

MY PRAYER FOR ALL YOU,

 MY FRIENDS,

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

HAVE A HEALING, PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS!

Ratatoskr just rolled over and told me to ask you guys:

"What do you call Batman when he skips church?

Christian Bail!"

Great!  

You groan at me, and Ratatoskr is fast asleep!!

My Christmas gift to you:

THE SIN OF NATIVITY SCENES

I drove past a Catholic Hospital on my way to work this morning, and I saw a lovingly crafted Nativity Scene.

I felt a bit more in the Christmas mood just seeing it
despite the "summer" temperature here in Louisiana


 since you do not see them very often anymore.


After all this is the Age of Enlightenment, of Sophistication, of Religious Tolerance ...

Unless you are a Christian ...


then, keep your beliefs to yourself, thank you very much!


Kindly stay hidden

and do not bother us with your world-view ...

though you are a lout if you do not give us the freedom of expression to beat you over the head with our beliefs.


But that is fitting in an odd way actually ...

The first Christians in the Roman Empire were hunted and persecuted.


Say at an inn, you sat across from a traveler and wondered from his words if he were a fellow believer,


you took your finger and drew the top swirl of the fish image from the condensation of your drink ...


If he completed the bottom image of the crude fish with his own finger, 

you knew you were in the company of a fellow believer.

The Greek word for fish is "ichthys."


 As early as the first century, Christians made an acrostic from this word: 



Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter, i.e. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.


The fish has plenty of other theological overtones as well, for Christ fed the 5,000 with 2 fishes and 5 loaves.

So if we are now once again cordoned off because of our beliefs, we are in good company.

But we can still reach out quietly in Christian Love, 

giving comfort and compassion during this season, silently living the world-view in which we believe.


Once again, I end with Alan Paton's wise words:

“There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.”

Now, for a bit of Christmas cheer: