CHRISTMAS IS UNREASONABLE By Gregory Barrette Christmas doesnt reason with us, it doesnt try to convince. It has no theology or argument to make. It captures our hearts, taking prisoner the sophisticated and so-called “civilized” conditioning of the mind. The Christmas story is nothing more than a symbolic depiction of the conditions that are necessary to move you into the birth experience of your soul! So, every time you see something associated with Christmas, ask yourself: “What does this have to do with the spiritual birth inside of me?” What qualities of heart would it take to emulate the shepherds, whose natural innocence and silent wonder made them receptive to the angel songs that must have been missed by everyone else in that location? The shepherds had to stay up all night, watching, waiting. The demand of their flocks was that they sit in silence, with a heightened awareness that made them ready for the angelic message of the birth, which must have found a similar response in their own inner soul awakening. I remember hearing Elizabeth Kubler Ross say that she had spent her entire lifetime thinking that she never could meditate, until a Tibetan monk asked her “What else would you call the hours you spent sitting silently by the bedsides of the dying?” This kind of natural, spontaneous mysticism is required from us as much as it was from the shepherds. Only then can we hear and see the messages from God. How about Mary, who was able to discern while she was awake the angelic messages that Joseph could only receive during sleep? Her heartfelt innocence and acceptance made her ready to give birth to that new consciousness. When have you been able to set aside all of your intellectual learning, and just directly KNOW? And what of Joseph, who was ridiculed as an older man being played for a fool by his pregnant betrothed? How did he withstand the rejection that is often suffered by the spiritual seeker at the hands of those who are not quite willing to discern the things of the heart? How can you? The conditions of that holy birth were not favorable, but it happened anyway. None of the religious people of that time accepted it, but it went forward. The deck was stacked against it happening, but there it is. Here stands this story, as if to tell us that we don’t have to wait for things to be “just so” to spiritually awaken. Christmas is unreasonable.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 03:42:29 +0000
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