Christmas Is Coming

TUES., DEC. 14, 1999, 6:14 AM
FARM, STUDY

It now is less than two weeks until the day called Christmas. In religious terms this is the remembrance and celebration of My birth, as Jesus, a Jewish baby, coming into the earth scene something like 2,000 years ago. It is a major holiday in your somewhat Christian culture, and it definitely is a major event in your commercial culture. One big feature, of course, is gift-giving (and receiving), and this spiritual remembrance has become the basis for the commercial nature of the season.

For some reason (and you needn’t ponder this) you have become less and less eager, in these later years, to be part of this gift-buying spree. Thanksgiving seems to be a more comfortable holiday, and with the family gathered, as it was this year, it was a time of “gifts of presence” – the renewal and continuance of loving relationships, sans gifts (or presents).

Remember that the Scriptural Christmas story had/has two groups of visitors to the stable – manger scene. And your culture has given up its penchant for time accuracy, and has both groups coming on the night of the birth. The shepherds just come “as they are,” they come to be “in the presence” of Me, as a baby, and to be present, in quiet, reverent celebration (or recognition) of this happening. The magi or wise men also come, but they bring gifts… that they have carried in a long trek. These gifts are not directly practical. They are more gifts of honor, respect, and recognition of something special… someOne more special than the circumstances of the birth would suggest.

But the “remembrance pageant,” as it is typically reenacted today, has all of this happening in one night… one Holy Night. Now, “in honor” of this all happening “at night” the lights of Christmas are quite important, with much money and effort spent on ever-more complex, lighted, “scenes.” This is part good remembrance and part commercial “hype” of the holiday. And you realize that many aspects of your culture as such combinations. ( 6:50 / 6:55 ) You still have time to develop and express gifts of “your presence,” and this you should do, extending these over time beyond this one day. But the time is “whirling by,” so make some decisions and get into action.

You have remembrances of many Christmases “past” (though the details are more and more lost as you age), and in many of these you were quite active, as a giver and as a participant. Now… in concert with what I recommend for your remaining earth life, as Bob Russell, I want you to be less active, less frenetic and more contemplative. This probably will not be your last Christmas, but it is a time in your life to sit back, observe, interpret, and muse. (Yes, you should anticipate a Teaching sometime Christmas Day, as a kind of “evaluation.”) You needn’t be critical, for you had your share of “active” Christmases. “For everything, there is a season”. Yours is now a “different season.”

You can feel some sorrow in this loss, but I want you to more fully appreciate and comfortably “be” who you are now, rather than who you were “then.” You do have more time than in earlier years, so, yes, do pledge and promise time to some family members.

You have a Ruminations to write and send out, and that should be commenced in this month, but it can be sent out later “even into the next century.” You should do a “Christmas Letter,” in your post-holiday tradition, and you’ll have to decide which should have “preference,” in being completed and sent out first.