“How Was Your Christmas?”
In the opening days of the New Year people often ask, “How was your Christmas?”
The answer, of course, is supposed to touch on family who came—or whom you visited—people who got sick, flights that got delayed or canceled, dinners or parties or events, and so forth. If the question comes from a close friend, the answer might touch on deeper emotional issues: sons or daughters who didn’t come home, a mother-in-law who hit the wassail a little too hard, an uncle’s crazy political commentary that sent people heading for their cars. But that’s pretty much it.
Even though “How was your Christmas?” is a question about Christ, that’s the one thing you can’t or shouldn’t talk about. But what if we did? What if we said, “That’s a good question . . . I think it finally hit me this year that God in flesh—my flesh—means that my body is good and holy—that every created thing is the body of God.” Or, if we said, “You know, I don’t think anything happened in my inner life this Christmas. Christ was pretty absent. There was just too much stress and drama.”
As we get older, we learn to care a little less about “Christmas”—in the sense of that socially polite question. We begin to approach the season on two levels. All the external stuff is beautiful and good, but it comes and goes, it works one year and doesn’t the next. Yet underneath all of the outward show, the relational chess game, there is a slow and steady light burning within. Christ can be born in the silent, invisible chamber of the heart. And—best of all—that birth can happen even when “Christmas” doesn’t.
That’s the obvious way to understand that question, considering the time spent during Advent that leads us to it. Yet, I don’t think I’ve ever asked it or answered it in this deeper way. Thanks, David!
And my Christmas was blessed on both levels.
I look at it as—-I wouldn’t actually answer that question the way I’d like to (people would think I’m crazy). But I can —if I’m awake—let that question stir another, deeper response.
Truth! I have never thought of that perspective before. There’s no way I could dive so deep when people ask me that question. Yet, personally I try to be reflective and have gained insights. But your question took me to a different place. I still have time to ponder this, since we have the 12 days of Christmas.. .Thank you!
That’s why we get 12 days…it takes a little while for the inner light to burn through all the other stuff.
I so love “and best of all”!
🙂
So do I! 😃
I agree with loving the line “And-best of all- that birth can happen even when ‘Christmas’ doesn’t”. This reminds me that when we go a little deeper into the birth of that light, that word made flesh and living among us, we can truly see that the ‘Christ’ in Christmas has the potential of being born in each of us every day.
Thank you David for a wonderful season of thoughts and reflections.
May the ‘Christmas’ Child bless you, Pam and your family in the coming year and beyond.
Thanks for the good Christmas wishes, John.
Christmas was good. I discovered the poetry of Helen Schucman
The Gifts of Christmas
Christ passes no one by. By this you know
He is God’s Son. You recognize His touch
In universal gentleness. His Love
Extends to everyone. His eyes behold
The Love of God in everything He sees.
No words but those His Father’s Voice dictates
Can reach His ears. His hands forever hold
His brothers’, and His arms remain outstretched
In holy welcome. Would you look on Him,
And hear Him calling you this Christmas day?
Behold, He offers you His eyes to see,
His ears to listen to His Father’s Voice,
His hands to hold His brothers’, and His arms
To reach to Him as He would reach to you.
You are as like to Him as He to God,
And you to God because you are
like Him.
All that He offers you is but your own.
Accept His gifts to you this Christmas day,
That you who are as God created you,
May come to recognize the Christ in you.
Helen Schucman
https://coursesweb.net/forum/images/poems-gifts_from_god.pdf
This is good, Monte—I didn’t know Helen Shucman, but I’m glad to be introduced. I browsed through some of her poems in the link you passed along. Thanks!