Holiday Season Thoughts

Visions of Open Hearts, Open Minds…

“Oh my God! November is here, already! I have to start my lists for menus, presents, greeting cards, and ugh, shopping!” [Sounds of frenetic shuffling of papers followed by frowns, gritting of teeth and chewing on lips…]
— From: The Screenplay In My Head

As we enter this Holiday Season, some may find it difficult to embrace the full meaning encapsulated in this season of love and giving. At a time when the nation and world is increasingly characterized by ideological and religious conflict, frenetic busyness, and the incessant toxic noises of news and social media, engaging in festive community seems inappropriate, or at least inconvenient. Isolation feels safer than risking exposure. To me, it feels as if we are devoid of compassion. Compassion for self, for others, for our world.

Yet in the acknowledgement of our common needs, questions, wounds, spiritual yearnings, we also can glean that we are all one and we are not alone.

I think our greatest fear is our deepest desire: to love and to be loved. Love is the remedy for healing. We long to be for another and to give ourselves nobly to another, but we fear the cost of love. Or what we perceive as the cost of love.

We long for oneness of heart, mind, and soul, but we fear the demands of unity. I will be found out. I do not deserve this. I am not good enough (yep, this one surfaces even during the holidays).

Sometimes I think we choose to be alone because it is safe. I know I have. To be comfortable in our isolation (something I know far too well) is our greatest poverty.   It keeps me bound by the wounds of the past and not open to the beauty and relationships all around me.

Compassion transcends isolation because the choice to be for another is the rejection of being alone. It is far better to be in relationship than alone with the made-up stories swirling around your head and in your heart.

I challenge you to unite this Holiday Season—in all aspects of your lives—with one another. Welcome the stranger, the outcast, and the poor to your table. Let us open our hearts and see beyond what we have been conditioned to believe. Be brave. Share what is deep within you. Look in the eyes of the stranger at your table and see them, while allowing yourself to be seen. Such union calls us out of our isolated existences into community. Into this Season. A Season of love and giving.

Franciscan scholar Ilia Delio, put it beautifully:

“We have the capacity to heal this earth of its divisions, its wars, its violence, and its hatreds. This capacity is the love within us to suffer with another and to love the other without reward. Love that transcends the ego is love that heals. When we lose ourselves for the sake of love, we shall find ourselves capable of real love.”

I leave you with this blessing for Equilibrium by Irish priest and poet John O’Donohue:

“Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”

Let us welcome in the Holiday Season with open hearts and open minds.

Until next time, friends.