Season's Meditations for 2012-2013 and beyond;

I’ve been think a lot this Christmas about themes as usual. I always pick a different theme to meditate on during this time of the year. A few times on here a I wrote a blog post about these musings. A year or two ago I wrote about my meditations and thoughts on the message of the Christmas star and the three wise men. This year the themes were not of my choosing. They sort of just organically happened. There were a few. Once I meditated on the virgin birth, but this year I couldn’t help but speifically ponder the gift of The Incarnation. Why did God come in the form he chose to come in? How did the fullness of the God-head become something so small, so vulnerable, so tiny? After pondering these questions for a long while and coming to my own conclusions, and I will leave everyone to their own; I then began considering something else. One of my absolute favorite Christmas songs has always been the little drummer boy. The song talks about how each of us as individuals with our individual gifts can best serve God. It is about bringing our best …the best of what we are and what we have and laying those things at the foot of the throne…at the feet of the new born King and saying; “I don’t know everything God but I lay all that I am…all that is best in me at your feet. Take me and use me as you will. Use my talents as you will. I am yours and I surrender…and to God be The Glory; for all that I am and all that I ever accomplish”!

There is a wonderful strange verse in scripture that says “In God We Live and Move and Have our being”…but I like to change perspective to a personal one.. “In God, I live, and Move, and Have my Being”! If we were to wake up each day and acknowledge this…acknowledge God in this way, how might our entire days be different? How might our entire life change when we go into every single day doing this?

The Little Drummer Boy fascinates me and I see him…that Archetype inside all of us who believe in and know God in a way!

This train of thought led me back to the beginning of my meditations and I came full circle. What did the miracle, the gift of The Incarnation say about God and about Life? What did it say about us and our place in the grand design?

Part of what it said to me that I will share is this… God gave his utmost, his all to us and how can we do anything less for God? What does it mean that he did something like that? He wanted to save us yes, but more than this….he wanted us to share in eternal life with him. He Loved us so much that not only did he want to experience everything that we do so that come judgment day he can be a merciful judge. He wanted to know us so intimately that he was willing to endure this dense, harsh, and dangerous reality from our point of view. He wanted us to understand that he loved us that much. He wanted us to know and love him that much in return; and how can we not? How do you turn your back on such an utter Love? I will never understand it, though I see it everyday. I recall an old Christian book called “My Utmost for His Highest”. I remember the little drummer boy and how he is inside of us.

 I let my thoughts keep evolving from there and keep journeying and the road they took led me to the classic Christmas tale… Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. The Three Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future trying to help one bitter wayward soul to find the true meaning of Christmas…what The Gift of Christmas really is. Many people think it is about family and friends and that maybe partially true. But it is about something so much more important and all encompassing. It is the point and message of Life and the Moral of every story in the end, when you understand what story tries to really teach us. The True Gift is nothing less than Love itself.

1 Corinthians; 13

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not prideful. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not selfish(rude wanting), it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong doings. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childishness behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

So as we go into this new year...remember the gift of The Incarnation, remember the Gift of Love and let us take that with us inside of our spirits going forward and let The True Spirit of Christmas inspire, fill, and inform all of our actions. Remember God's new A.R.K. for us (ACTS OF RANDOM KINDNESS), and The New Covenant of Love we have all been given the chance to be a part of. 

 One Mitzvah (Good deed / kind or righteous act), One act of random kindness at a time is how we change the world. This is part of the concept of Tikkun Olam which I encourage you to learn about. 

 Taken from 1 John 4:12; "...but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us". 

  1 John 4:16; So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God Lives in them.


The Message of The Christmas Star Blog-post

Blog-post on Father Christmas and Saint Nickolas

Bog-post on Yule-tide