Often as we think about Christmas memories, we realize that Christmas is not always an easy time for folks. False expectations run high. Relationships aren’t always smooth, or present. Merriment and shopping attempt to offer to fill unmet needs. Today I am stirred by the reminder that this very special holiday is not about the things.
I am so very humbly grateful that dear Mary, ultimately the Discoverer of this blessed Science of the Christ, was once a girl so attuned with love for Christ Jesus that, through her ever-increasing spiritual understanding, she ultimately released thousands upon thousands from the possible disappointment of a Christmas story sans the Christ. Mary Baker Eddy loved true Christmas. She wrote in 1900, “Again loved Christmas is here, full of divine benedictions and crowned with the dearest memories in human history — the earthly advent and nativity of our Lord and Master. At this happy season the veil of time springs aside at the touch of Love.” (First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 256:17-21)
Each year, as we each deepen our love for God and His gift of the Christ- child to the world, we endeavor to live lives of ever more selfless love for others. Love lived, – it’s better than a million presents under an enormous tree.
Sometimes stopping to find the glints of past light, a past kindness, or grace, or gentleness, reminds us to acknowledge the good that we find, never losing sight of the love that was and is still real to us, guiding us to continue that love in our lives today.
Hoping this will spark some of your memories of Christly love and care, a few mementos burn brightly for me as this season rolls around. Stoke the embers of thought and send some stories where you felt Love’s presence in your Christmas.
Let’s make this a living Christmas card, sparkling with gratitude!
Memories that fill my thought today-
The Christ was in evidence each year for our families, as both of our dads had come home from the war. This was always, though mostly unspoken, a Christmas of, perhaps, gratitude taken for granted.
I think now of the love and the presence of my completely beloved “Gramp,” who quietly endured our gift-giving; yet whom I know was so grateful that, after many years alone, he had family to be with. I recall the love that impelled the sweater and a savings bond he gave my sister and me each Christmas. He would sometimes say in jest, that if he ever went into a church, it would fall down. Yet his was a love that was so deep and present, you felt it. I know the Christ was there, because I feel it today when I think of his integrity and faithfulness.
I loved seeing the evidence of good, the Christ, lived as our growing family, gathered together over dinner,- my mom, dad, our kids, my sis, her family, with kindness and sweet joy, each one feeling “familied,” cared for. As lives changed and people moved on, the tangible feeling of the tender care remains today.
Mom loved us deeply, and prayed so faithfully for us wherever we were. We lived locally, but my sister lived in Hawaii, and Mom really missed her. One Christmas, we surprised my parents by flying my sister home on Christmas eve. I don’t think I ever saw my mom and dad so surprised and so happy!
Today, we continue to celebrate the effects of others’ lives on us, those who were dedicated to Christly living and loving, – whether they called it that or not. This makes us all the more grateful for each smile, or care, or tender thought or word. What comprises family is the outreach that encircles each one wherever they are, whoever they are, – how broad and wide is our circle of love. It’s comforting that in our active love for one another, we’ll also feel its blessings.
Our Christmases are wrapped up, treasured through many decades when we identify with the love that saved us, or impelled us, or sheltered us or provided for us, or sacrificed for us. It’s the forever love of the Christ, born with Jesus and continuing through the centuries, Isn’t this what we celebrate? Is this the beginning of lives lived in Love? Isn’t this the Christ?
Find the Christ everywhere this Christmas. Identify it. You are included. There is no outside to Love. It is there, for every heart to find, to recognize, and to bring with it the gentle presence of our all-good, everywhere present, for all time, God.
Hymn 170 in the Christian Science Hymnal adapted from a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier says so much perfectly.
“The outward symbols disappear From him whose inward sight is clear, And small must be the choice of days To him who fills them all with praise. Keep while ye need it, brothers mine, With honest zeal your Christmas sign, But judge not him who every morn Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born.”
Happiest of this season to each one.
Feel its blessings.
With so much love, Pam