I should be cleaning my house right now (my brother-in-law will be arriving in the morning), but the truth is that I feel like I'm getting a cold, and all I want to do is sit around and do low key Christmasy things. I just finished writing cards and then I turned my attention to this Christmas blog. As I write, my son is out driving around on his own in my new Prius. He's had his license for a week, and I notice that I've gotten much better at taking his driving in stride over seven days' time. My dog is snoring at my side, which is comforting because on Tuesday the vet said he had a heart condition, and I thought I was going to lose him. It turned out to be his thyroid. I think that's when my immunity dropped, the minute the vet said "it's his heart."
Does that happen to you? When you hear bad news, something that shocks your system, do your reserves lower? I used to listen to Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit, and I still like to quote her saying, "You can eat cat food if your spirit is in the right place." I've always loved that line. She was talking to her audience of New Age, tofu eating, vegetarians and basically telling them to get their priorities straight...that if they're holding on to grievances or feeling unrest of some sort, tofu isn't really going to help in the long run.
So what am I thinking about Christmas this year? Has my spirit been in the right place? It's been a bustling month as always, and I haven't felt my holiday "click" yet. I've been indulging in worry, about my niece and her social security, my son and his college applications, my son and his driving, my dog and his health...for someone who ascribes to positive psychology and appreciative thinking I sure have been worrying a lot lately. How can the message of Jesus' birth, or light in the darkness help me? Do I really have the faith that all will be well?
I guess that depends on how I define "well." When I get stuck on "well" looking a certain way (for example, is your house decorated as well as you would like?) I can feel my spirit taking a nose dive. When I step back and broaden my perspective and remember that the love is what matters, my spirit comes back up. Personally I like to consider the messages of Christianity more metaphorically than literally, and it seems that the story of Jesus in the stable (or the Hanukkah story of the Jews crossing the desert) definitely didn't start out looking like all would be well. But then it was. In fact, it worked out better than we could have imagined.
I guess that's the message that I want to remember this Christmas. That I can have a little faith that things will work out better than I can imagine. I can't force things to work out, as hard as I might try, but I can relax and allow things to work out. And they will, when all is said and done. They will.
Then the trick will be to not get involved in worrying about something else. But that's a blog for another day.
Joyous Christmas to all of you who celebrate it, and happy holidays to those of you who are just celebrating!
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