Christmas means different things to different people and I always feel sorry for those who have never known or have forgotten the true message of Christmas. I always like to think of the month of December as the time of year that puts Christmas love into action. For families, the best of presents ever found around their Christmas tree is their presence, all wrapped up in each other. Above all else, Christmas Day celebrates the birth of Jesus and not the death of the turkey that graces the family table. It is the day that holds together time, reason and purpose.
I once worked with an unhappy man who never laughed or smiled or had a good word to say to anyone all year round. Christmas was no different for Keith and merely brought out the Scrooge in him more than ever. It later transpired that his firstborn and only child died when she was a few days old, one Christmas Eve before I ever met him. I worked alongside Keith for three years never knowing the grief he felt daily for this tragic loss in his life and thinking less well of him than he deserved. There are so many people who dread the Christmas period as it still holds bad memories for them that remains emotionally unresolved. May they know peace this Christmas.
When I was a child and snow covered the ground around Christmas Day, I would see this white blanket as keeping all the creatures beneath the soil warm in the underworld. Just as I was taught by my parents that the birth of baby Jesus 2000 years earlier had put the true message into Christmas time thereafter, I saw the falling snow as putting the fun into mine now. I would run out into the snow and wash my face, hands and whole body to cleanse myself.
Blessed be God and the Christmas Season which engages all those with a warm heart in a conspiracy of love; for this season is a time of year when prayer is at its most powerful and kind thought is at its best. Merry Christmas.
Love and peace. Bill and Sheila xxx