I've had a pretty packed year; lots of transitions. Another move, this time to Sacramento, adjusting to life in the city again. Juggling jobs, friend and family issues and drama. Taking care of my beautiful grand-daughter, Alivia, and watching her grow has been a joy to my world.
But I have to say that, throughout my entire life, not just this year...I get a lot of satisfaction knowing that I have served or helped someone, even if it's been a thankless thing. So many people in this world do things that go unnoticed or unappreciated. So many times I keep quiet and think: "If they only knew..." and know in my heart how much good is done in the world that so many do not see. So many times I bow my head in gratefulness for the people who have helped me (they know who they are). So many times I ache, wishing that people knew the truth about such deeds, but know that there is a blindness that covers eyes, hearts and souls. A cancerous, selfish blindness that seems to have no cure here.
Christmas has become a time of year when the masses succumb to commercialism and paganism, crowded malls and department stores playing holiday music over the intercom. Selecting that perfect photo of entire families smiling for the cameras and sent as Christmas cards, calendars or postcards. Letters sent out notifying loved ones of a year's worth of updates and activities. Trees covered in lights, presents under the tree, stockings over the fireplace, candles lit...
It's a wonderful life. Or is it just another day in the life?
As an edgy, unorthodox believer, there is not too much I believe "in" these days. My faith is strong, but my belief waxes and wanes like the cycles of the sun and moon. I don't like to be told what to believe, nor how to believe...and at Christmas time, I greatly struggle with the parameters, boundaries and burdens that the media, market and religion has placed upon humanity. Wrapping "God in a box" doesn't do it for me. I do give credence to tradition, only in the human sense, because tradition contains the familiarity of hope and basic human, "agape" love throughout the centuries...real human beings of the past who have carried on the rituals and signs of hope in a world that even they even recognized was doomed. Galileo. Michelangelo. Mozart, Handel's Messiah...and so many more. Other than those, it seems that I am an enigma in an apparent sea of confusion and strife.
My mother (God rest her soul) taught me one thing that has continually impacted in my life, through thick and thin: "Actions speak louder than words." This gifted wisdom from her heart and soul has guided me through my "wonderful life" like every day being Christmas. It has helped me see through fake friends, shallow salespersons, empty marriages, ungrateful recipients, boring dates, thankless jobs, spoiled, immature youth, etc. The truth is and will be revealed through actions, not words. This is an ironic thing for me as a writer, where all I write are mere words.
But truth? Oh, truth is something that is greatly feared and rejected in today's "wonderful life". No one really wants the real story behind the story. After all, real truth is not marketable, not kosher, not representative of the "institution" being represented. It's all so very hush-hush. Truth be told...no one wants to hear or see the truth! Governments, religions and ministries, corporate institutions buy into their own drilled-up assholes thinking: "Let them eat cake. Let them buy into our bullshit so we can buy ourselves time. Then we will die, and the next generation has to deal with our mess. Smile for the cameras and clueless reporters." Oh, too soon? Too honest?
Guess what? Some lemmings might actually be thinking...some for the very first time.
It's one of the many things I love about the human aspects of Jesus Christ. What we know about this man is that he: 1) Was a carpenter, meaning he was a hard worker (thanks to his father, Joseph, who, by the way, had to deal with the whole Immaculate Conception thing), 2) Was dedicated to a cause, meaning Jesus knew the truth of what and who he was about (Luke 2:49), 3) Saw the world for what it was: fallen, and 4) Recognized "God in him" ie. "God with us" (Matt. 1:23). That prophets foretold his coming isn't a surprise. The world needed...and still needs...a superhero. Not necessarily physically, but spiritually. The soul in need of saving. The heart in need of beating for something. For anything...and not for destruction and demise of the world, but for the building up and saving of this world. Christ in us. Is that so hard to fathom?
Oh, so what did humanity do? Yeah, crucified the Dude. Oh, that's coming up here during the Easter season, where everyone does the Easter Bunny, egg hunt crap. Before you know it, Walmart's shelves will be adorned with plastic grass for those plastic baskets, hollow chocolate bunnies, and your Generation Z children who only care about the latest Xbox and iPhone upgrade...a spoiled, over-endulged generation that whines and cries about whatever the soup du jour is in a world that isn't.
Like I've said before, it doesn't take rocket science to be a prophet, for the future (time) here is based upon probability. If we haven't evolved to a state which could recognize unconditional, unadulterated love for what it truly is, well...live long and prosper.
But wasn't that what Jesus said?
Merry Christmas, Earth. And peace on it...
Carol
John 16
New International Version (NIV)
“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.
I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’
Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Spirit will not come to you; but if I go, I will send It to you. When It comes, It will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when the Spirit of truth comes, It will guide you into all the truth. It will not speak on Its own; It will speak only what It hears, and It will tell you what is yet to come. It will glorify me because It is from me that It will receive what It will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what It will make known to you.”
Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?”
They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?
Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
“Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.
Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
--
Carol
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