As a child Christmas was the love of family holding me safe and stories of magic and miracles.
As I got older I grew to realise that there are deeper forms of love and more subtle forms of gift-giving. The love of God giving his son to the world is echoed every day in the love of good people making sacrifices for each other without regrets. The love of friends and family giving time and sharing, understanding and laughter. The love of a life partner giving more than there are words to describe. And the more you embrace that truth of love the more the gifts grow.
Christmas is a reminder that love is more than an emotion
– it is the energy of miracles.
Michelle
The Meaning of Christmas?
I'm not sure that I can tell you anymore. It's not that I don't know. I've lived most of my life fully in the "Reason for the Season," family embraces, children's smiles and expectant giggles, the words of Luke 2: 1-20, the aromatic fumes of Glogg, all thirteen verses of "Good King Wencelas," and singing "Still, Still, Still" in a trio while tears rolled down my cheeks.
I knew it. I lived it. It is still part of me, too. It lives broadly, expansively, lovingly, and gloriously in my memories.
But life moves on and changes, evolves, into things we could never have expected. And the Gift doesn't seem so nicely and tidily wrapped up in shiny paper and bright bows any more, to be trotted out once a year, or even every Sunday and on choir nights.
The Gift has slowly become me - and, believe me, that's not tidy at all! Now, I'm not saying I'm God! Hah! Not at all. But God is in me, part of me. God's not "out there" tied up in the pretty boxes of current religious thought, Walmart's low prices, Wii, and the subprime rate. Nope. The Gift is here in this chubby, old lady with white hair, tennis elbow and sinus problems every morning I wake up. Kind of repulsive when I put it that way, but there it is - the Meaning of Christmas is messy. God made manifest - the Gift amid the messiness.
Go find your Gift this Christmas!
