Christmas

Where are you going to be this Christmas? Christmas time has become a crossroads for people today: a time of hopes for better days, yet aware that not all the good desires of our hearts will come to be.

It's as if we are seeing reflections of faces in the mirrored silver balls hanging by hooks on the limb of a tree. We see someone, but not the person we thought we were. A moment later we see the person we perhaps could be. We might even see the person God sees, as we really are, no better, no worse, neither a monster, nor mighty demon slayer.

Truth is, truth can come home for Christmas. We are not as successful as we had scheduled to be. Our relationships with family and friends have not been well-tended either. What happened to last year's resolutions? And what of our plans just for the holidays? Where will we get the time to do it all?

So, what are you going to do for Christmas this year? Will you get a tree and decorate it? A wreath? Candy canes? Will you be adding a few new decorations to the many familiar ones?

Wouldn't it be nice if we could decorate our lives as we decorate our homes?

It's a special joy for me the day I go to the basement to pull out our family's Christmas decorations. My wife and I have old ones from before we met each other, others from our first Christmas together that have very special meaning, others still from each consecutive year. As we pull them out one at a time, experiencing bursts of brilliant memories firmly rooted in the love we share.

Yet, alive also is our hope for the years to come: of children, more friends, and wondering what spiritual lives that go deeper and deeper as God pours love into our hearts will reveal about the Incarnation of Christ into our lives.

If I could pass on anything to you, it would be these "wonders of His love." May you, as you experience the old and the new of the season, as you ponder the Nativity, pray to have a spiritual re-naivety.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could decorate our lives as we decorate our homes? Actually, it is easier. Ask God to shed his grace on you and decorate your soul with a love as warm as mittens, a forgiveness that covers your mistakes like a six-inch snowfall, a joy as bright as a ton of tinsel hanging from every corner of your life.

Marking the birth of the Christ Child, shouldn't it be just the time to get reborn again? Where are you going to be this Christmas... spiritually? Be in Christ! May his birth in your inmost heart give you a peace that the world cannot give, and may that peace and serenity grow throughout the years.