Be the Present this Christmas
What makes Christmas and other religious and cultural observations different from any time of the year? What do we do during such special periods? We prepare our homes and our hearts; we cook special dishes; we gather together to break bread and say traditional prayers and sing age-old songs. We bless each other with prayers and gifts.
Cleaning the home makes way for the new and removes the past. As we go each stage of our lives, we clear our homes. Student. Married. Parenthood. Empty Nesting. You celebrate the yearly Christmas different but repeating the same traditions passed down by the family and religion. So there is that ever present tension of being constant yet changing and changed.
Making food is not a solitary task and neither is eating it. It takes a village to prepare the food for the village. We ooh and ahh over special dishes we have not seen for some time. The dish that we first tasted in the warm kitchens of our grandmothers. They bring us memories of love and childhoods of hope and dreams. We have food stories like war stories set in kitchens all around the world. You can only cook with such fervor a dish which takes days of preparation because you know that apart from delighting the palate they delight the hearts of those you love.
Coming together for a reason. To celebrate and to well wish is a conscious choice. We rush around so much that we sometimes forget to honor the people in our lives. We take the time to send greetings and invites to meals so that we remind ourselves that Persons are Gifts. We remind ourselves to be Present to each other. The role model at Christmas is the gift of Baby Jesus. His birth brings shepherds, kings, angels and animals together. It brings everyone together. Where we are reminded by our religious heads to call our Higher Self our God Self to forgive, forget and re-create with love and people centered in our minds and hearts.
If you look at our every day, we lack that sacredness. The sacredness we try to create and recreate with our social events too — like birthdays and anniversaries. A birthday cake, song and party. We try then to remind ourselves of that it is not merely a year older (and wiser) not a change by default by fate. Rather we are transforming.
However for those social events to become life-changing we need to understand that the to be able to truly celebrate any special or religious day involves being truly present to the now. To feel below and beyond the surface celebrations to the deepness of the true gift of the divine in us.
Transformation we can only sense if we are present to that sacredness in life. A song I particularly enjoy each Christmas states that “Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart. Somewhere deep inside you is where Christmas really starts”. No amount of external decorations and feasting can replace the God Consciousness you need when we become aware of the celebration in all religions and cultures of the sacredness of life. Through food, gifts, prayers, decorations and the most important focus of all -the gift of you.
I have toyed with the phrase of ‘are you celebrating Christmas this year?’ as I tuned up or turned down the volume of activities and decorations and efforts I put into Christmas each year. You know.. because I wasn’t up to all the festivities. Then I realized I cannot run from Christmas by not celebrating it. Just like I cannot run from my birthday by ignoring it. However the depth of Christmas or any such sacred day is not a game of number of parties, prayers or presents; it is the deepening of your own presence and being present to others during that period in a way that we all hold so dear. Why are we meeting? “Because it’s Christmas/New Year/our Anniversary” — all are the same phrases for we are meeting because we miss you and you are the present in my life.
