Around this time of year, people run around concerned with buying gifts, hoping others will get them that special thing showing how much they are understood, even more than they know themselves. In addition, many try to create that perfect environment where everyone will finally be happy. This, all compressed into a single day called Christmas.
Oh sure, wanting to get lots of gifts for others is selfless, isn't it? So that's good. If someone feels left out and a gift can give them the style to express themselves, so they're understood, then why not get them that thing? So that's good. Finally, the celebration day filled with food, bright and shiny things, music all day, and people laughing, that all is good too, isn't it?
So why do so many struggle at this time of year, when it's supposed to be all so good? May I offer a suspected reason and then an alternative that just may help?
Let's start at the beginning, the running around all over the place, to buy gifts in a financially induced frenzy. If we took the time to consider others deeply, internally, to the core of who they are, then we would respond to the need of each life, most every time we were together, at least in small ways. Lives would be more full, and the vacuum of desire that shows itself each year, under the "making up for not being there" idea of Christmas, would be diminished. Let's face it, what drives most of us to "run around" is more guilt than love. Major product advertisers know this, misdirecting us to the idea that things are the answer to our disconnection; they play on it, to prey on us. This demand is what stimulates us to spend more time away from our loved ones so we can buy them more substitutes. How many times have you seen a commercial that ends with everyone being happy because someone bought a product?
That they are happy is a misnomer. More aptly put, they are satiated. This is how we get off track. In life, many of us have picked up a distorted perspective about what need is. We get moving so fast, from the assumed expectations of others, we replace the genuine article with things. That's not fair to things, as they are only matter and ultimately do not matter. That's not fair to yourselves, as it is an endless cycle of consumption, and that's not fair to the life you are trying to address, as they are trapped in the same misdirected addictive cycle. Having someone in the same boat get us that perfect gift, is too much for a material thing when the problem is spiritual.
I don't want to accidentally misdirect anyone either; not all companies do this intentionally; it's more the machine we've all been caught in. Things can be nice expressions of already healthy relationships, but not a fix. They can be temporary aids for life's circumstances or appetites but not to the heart. So, it becomes apparent, we need a solution to fix the problem of misdirected souls.
Jesus came as a baby, with a brand new kind of life, exuding from every pore. The timing of his coming was precise. In increasingly cold and darkening days, he brought warmth to human hearts and light to the real need within our lives, for those who would embrace him.
Every child addresses the three things we struggle with. Think of it; they bring new life, which in its essence invigorates ours. Their lives, to a degree, validate ours, coming as we learn to address their needs, teaching them well, not teaching them the same distracted ways of the world. They also give us a new chance to get relationships right; they are our 'do over' as we teach them how to live at peace with others, difficult or not.
It's not an accident God came to us as a child, and the Angels sang a song of "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men." Internal, eternal peace, is offered "Toward Men" (meaning humankind), but it individually remains what we will do with it. Make the choice this Christmas and ask Christ to enter your heart; he will set up his peace there. Hey, "garbage in, garbage out" it works the other way too. Make the wise choice, the running will stop, the validation will enter in, and the gifts will come from healthier, more conscious intentions year round, transforming your Christmas and those of the ones you love forever.
Wise Men (all wise people)
Still Seek Him.
Have a Very Merry Christmas!