OUR SOULS ARE CRAVING SOMETHING MORE
The holidays as portals to spiritual awareness
As we head toward the end of November, Thanksgiving is upon us. From there we’ll officially be starting the holiday season, with Hannukah and Christmas only a month away.
The material trappings of the holiday season can be like syrup that devours the waffle. Such trappings can drown out the spiritual meaning of the holidays, making them less holy-days and more anxiety ridden days. Where will we be? Who will we be with? What do we have to do, with whom and where? And what do we have to buy?
We all know none of that is what the holidays are supposed to be. Particularly now, with the world so clearly out of whack, our souls are craving something more.
The true meaning of Christmas and Hannukah are like nuggets of gold wrapped in layers of cloth, with too many mistaking the cloth for what’s wrapped inside it. In fact, both holidays are about miracles - both in our hearts and in the world. They’re about divine intercessions from a thought system beyond our own. They’re about a God who rescues humanity from our own self-destructive impulses. They’re about the birth of something new inside us. They’re a deeper truth than the world bestows.
Take the dogma and the doctrine out of it. Take the political shenanigans out of it. Take the institutional corruption out of it. There is spiritual truth at the heart of the holidays. When we get a glimpse of that truth, something changes inside us. We see what we hadn’t seen before, and know things we hadn’t known before. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, /Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” wrote Shakespeare. Humanity is like a baby just beginning to look around the room.
We’re living at a time when we are drowned in information yet starving for truth. Data, it turns out, is only a starting point for wisdom. The message of this moment is to go deeper. Go deeper than what your physical senses reveal to you, deeper than what the rational mind itself can even know. “Love restores reason, and not the other way around.” (ACIM) A clearer understanding of what the world is going through today is provided by mythology, spirituality, poetry and philosophy than by any set of worldly knowledge. We are the problem, and only we can save us. We save ourselves when we re-align our consciousness with something bigger than ourselves.
That is the meaning of Christmas, and also the meaning of Hannukah. They represent a renewal of the mind, a renewal of the heart, and thus a renewal the world. They signal the next stage of our evolution as a species, which isn’t physical but spiritual. In the words of French philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, “Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire“
Our greatest power to change the world lies in our power to think about it differently. In expanding our consciousness beyond an over-identification with the physical world, we reclaim our spiritual identity. Our wholeness. And that is what our holiness is: a state where we are whole. Having been stricken - simply living in this world - by a fractured sense of self, we have manifested a fractured world. In reconnecting the mind with the heart, we remember who we are and we remember why we’re here. Having repaired our sense of self, we begin to repair the world.
To me, these words from A Course in Miracles go straight to the heart of things:
Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator.
Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do. Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else. It is equal in it power to help anyone because it is equal in its power to save anyone.
If you are holy, so is everything God created. You are holy because all things He created are holy. And all things He created are holy because you are. (WB-58)
The holidays should not be mindless; they should be mindful. Indeed, they can be miraculous. Embraced at the depths from which they call to us, they are portals of understanding that help usher in a more beautiful world.
Note:
If you’re looking to curl up in a chair with a good book this holiday season, I hope you’ll find inspiration in a couple of mine: A RETURN TO LOVE: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles and THE MYSTIC JESUS: The Mind of Love. Check out Marianne.com for the various offerings available there, including an upcoming class on MIRACLE-MINDED RELATIONSHIPS (remember the paid subscriber discount) and my newest published work, MIDLIFE AWAKENING: Creating a Miraculous Next Chapter.
Wishing you magic and miracles in the days that lie ahead…
Wonderful.
And mindfulness is an opportunity to put the ghost of Christmas( the past in us) to rest.
Many of us have family ( the unhealed past in us) especially challenging at Christmas.
Let us remember that when we heal ourselves we heal our ancestors and our children.
This year let us give generously of ourself( Love)
Peace and joy
So dear and pure. The world needs to catch up with the difference between holiness and woo woo. Bless your bravery about the course you’re giving us in a few days about the sacredness of existence, which at one level gives those critics a target to shoot at, but for people who know more it’s a gift we appreciate you for. I’ll even to pay for a subscription for anyone who can’t afford to pay but who wants to be there. Let me know in my Comments, where I just wrote about what you’re up to:
Toying with getting humanity on another track
Glimmers of what to do
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/toying-with-getting-humanity-on-another