Christmas Bells Are Ringing!

So, today I tune my Internet radio to Christmas music while I work at my computer. It is a bit early for me, but somehow I just felt in the mood. Besides, it may help get the Christmas Spirit flowing into everything I do between now and the New Year.

Thanksgiving this year was a personal feast, as I noted in my last blog entry. I got through the meal without seriously over eating and managed to prepare portions such that only the turkey breast had to be delivered to the freezer in packages for later sandwiches or hot turkey and gravy meals. Well managed if I do say so myself!

But back to Christmas. To all who read this entry please consider this my Christmas card to you. Each year the list of “snail” mail cards gets shorter. I am not sure how many will go out this year. In some ways, the older we get the more long-time friends begin to make their move on in life. Perhaps that is why the “seasonal blues” strike so many of us. At this time of the year when gathering with family and friends is so important to many of us, it becomes clear that some of those family members and friends are no longer with us physically.

What is particularly interesting to me, however, is that since opening a Facebook account, friends from out of the past have found me, or I have found them. In some ways this is a wonderful compensation for the loss of those who have moved on. I hope that any of you who may be feeling the onset of the seasonal blues, will take heart in the realization that you are loved and supported by many folks you may have thought were no longer aware of you. Love is out there in their hearts as they remember you and the impact you had on their lives. I certainly have experienced this in the reconnection with friends with whom I shared an important period of my life many years ago. My experience has convinced me that once our paths have crossed, we are together forever in some way. Throughout this holiday season it is a good time to reconnect in our mind and heart with those who have touched our lives in some way. As you send out your love to those who come to mind, that love will multiply as it returns to bless you.

Wow! It is going to be a great month enjoying the music, special programs, and most all your friendship! Enjoy!

'Tis The Season

Once again Christians turn their thoughts to the joys of the Christmas Season. No time of the year offers quite as much of an opportunity for experiencing joy, excitement and sharing glad tidings.

The rosy cheeks of little children making snow angels in the freshly fallen snow coupled with their eager smiles will melt the most Scrooge-like person’s heart.

The blue star-filled skies lighted by the moon are searched by all for that great sleigh filled with toys and led, maybe, by that fabled red-nosed reindeer, Rudolph himself!

I hope we are never too old for fables and rich legends about the Holidays. I feel that if we have lost that magical feeling, we may also miss the spirit of Christmas. Certainly Christmas is more than Santa and toys and reindeer rushing across the sky. It is also about the continual rebirth of the Christ within each of us.

That rebirth is not simply a symbolic notion. Jesus, speaking to his disciples, as reported in John 14:20 said: At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. Jesus always referred to himself as one with the Father and claimed the same for everyone. He also claimed that he did nothing of himself, but what the Father did through him. Whatever he did was possible for us as well if only we would believe in the possibility. The rebirth of Christ in us, then, occurs as we claim the possibility of demonstrating in our lives the essence of life, health, and abundance.

All religions celebrate similar potentials, so for non-Christians who may be reading these words, I celebrate with you the Spirit of God—by whatever name—blessing your life with all that is good.