I love Advent and Christmas. I would celebrate it every single day if I could get my wife to leave the tree up and let me listen to Christmas carols. No, really, not kidding! I would surely do it. But, I am a realist and know that every season must come and go. Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, for those who know the traditional Church calendar. Tomorrow is Epiphany. My love of the season revolves around the new year, which for Christians begins with the first Sunday of Advent and the new year beginning with the celebration of the birth of the Christ.
Now, let’s just be clear, I do know that Christians co-opted the pagan holiday of Yule and the Christmas tree, and lots more and that Jesus was likely born in the Spring. But why did Christians choose this time? Simple, pagans knew something special, that on the darkest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, there was still a spark of light in the world. Gaia, or whatever you might choose to call it, there was still a spark of light in the world at the darkest time. Christians chose that time to be in agreement with a very ancient tradition and so celebrate that new light, the baby Jesus, coming into the world.
It is great joy, a time of childlike wonder. But, for me it is childlike wonder about the goodness and nature of every human. I told you I was a mystic and nowhere is the mystery greater than is discovering a certain relationship, that of the Creator to the creation. In the Genesis story, it relates that God breathes the breath of life (Holy Spirit) into the man (sorry folks just citing the Bible) and that truly brings life. It is that moment that humankind becomes a creation in the Sacred’s own image. And I believe that every human on the planet is that image.
No, I do not believe in the utter depravity of the reformed church. Every creation of the Sacred is carrying that breath of life, so for me, utter depravity cannot be true. Do people “miss the mark” (the meaning of the word we translate as sin)? Oh, yeah, this messy mystic for sure, but we are all created for good, that being to love and be in love with the Sacred. So, when I celebrate the season, my childlike wonder is that every person is filled with the Spirit of the Sacred. Learning how to treat each of them as that Holy creation is a trick I am still working on.
So here’s a challenge for you……go through just one day seeking the Spirit in every single person you encounter that day. Mother Theresa said she saw the face of the suffering Christ in every poor, starving, sick person she served in India. What if your Epiphany is finding that face tomorrow, on the day of Epiphany and every day after that?
TMM