CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH AND THE COMING OF LIGHT

The birth of possibilities not yet seen

Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah occur on the same day today, a kind of double shout out from the universe that Love and Light will yet prevail. Whether it’s Long lay the world in sin and error pining or Not enough oil to last more than a day, both holidays speak to worldly suffering and God’s intervention that sets us free of it.

There’s a lone shepherd boy in each of us, wandering in the darkness of night, witnessing today the Star of Bethlehem that signals the birth of something new. The savior that is yet to be born is a better version of ourselves: he appeared and the soul felt its worth. Christians say the Messiah was born that night; Jews say he is yet to be born; and Einstein said there is no time. In the field of the quantum ultimate, the Messiah is born into the world each time our hearts are open to love.

Decades ago, I was living in New York City on a cold, bright beautiful Christmas day. I was walking to a friend’s house for Christmas dinner, and I remember I was holding a dish my partner and I had prepared to take with us. All of a sudden I had a hit, a tremendous sense of something that has always stayed with me. I got in that moment that literally billions of people all over the world, right then, were considering the possibility that Love might actually save us.

I got the enormity of that. I was early then into my study of A Course in Miracles, so I didn’t have much intellectual understanding of why it mattered so much. But I do now. I realize that ideas grow stronger when they’re shared. Today, among Christians and Jews all over the world, billions of people are considering the possibility that there might be a better way. Even if it’s for just one day -or just one moment - we embrace the thought that God’s Love and Light are the dominant power, to which we bend our knee and rededicate our lives.

Thirty years ago, I lived in Los Angeles at the time of the Northridge earthquake. I was engaged to be married then, my daughter was a baby, and we were awakened at 4:17 in the morning by a violent jolt. I ran into Emma’s room and heard my three year old cry scoldingly, “Go away, earthquake!”

Then the phone began to ring. Men I had loved - those who had left my life either having been hurt, or having hurt me - began calling with a breathless “Are you okay?” In that moment, it didn’t matter who had hurt who. It didn’t matter who was angry at who. It only mattered that in that moment, we realized we loved each other. That only Love was Real.

The other day my computer froze, and as with any electronic equipment the best course of action was to turn it off for a moment and then turn it back on again. To me, that’s Christmas. If for even one day we can have a break in the action - turning off the usual resistances to love that keep us stuck in patterns of separation and fear - then perhaps we can have a chance to start over. To begin again. To change the circuitry in our brains that spew out constant excuses for why love is not the answer…when in fact, we know it is.

This Christmas, for all kinds of reasons love can seem hard. Our personal relationships as well as politics and world events are riddled with walls of division. Those walls keep our hearts in isolation and our lives in the grip of sadness and fear. This is, once again, the dark night of the human soul. Christmas is a Light that appears in the darkness of our inner sky, beckoning us to be the people we are called to be, Jesus an innocent child within our consciousness guiding us to the actualization of our more powerful and loving selves.

For Jews, this is a very sad year. We are living through our own dark night, on top of and part of the darkness of the larger world. Yet tonight we light candles that remind us of God’s love, and of the miracles He has always delivered to us. At this darkened time, may we all remember - thinking of those who have hurt us, as well as those we have hurt - that the deeper truth of the soul is that we love each other. Beneath the pain, beneath the suffering, beneath the cruelties of this world, only Love is Real.

Today we remember that Love will yet see us through. Let us wish that for each other, and so shall it be. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all! May great Love and a bright Light unfold in all our lives, casting out all darkness from the world.

Amen.