Tuesday, December 3, 2013

On The Seasons of the Heart



I particularly enjoy this time of year, not necessarily for any religious reasons, but for the colors, fragrances and conviviality that show up in greater abundance. People are just in a better frame of mind. For some of us there may be spiritual overtones, but we can be just as spiritually involved with life at any other time as well. For some there are gatherings of families or groups, some of which seem perfectly natural, some of which are somewhat contrived; and there can be conflicts that arise when people who don’t particularly want to be together are thrown together.

The better angels of our nature...

Perhaps we could view this season in a personalized way, as something that would allow gift giving, good feelings and doing good in ways and situations that we choose. Certainly there can be religious/spiritual inklings, if we wish, but we can also choose basic human ethics as a means to give a bit of ourselves away. What if we listened to the better angels of our natures as they sing the Christmas mandate to us…Peace on earth, good will to all? And what if we actually decided to try it for once? What if we gave everyone a break, at least for awhile, including ourselves and some of those folks we find so difficult? Couldn’t this allow a little healing to take place?

A tale of redemption...

One of my favorites, Charles Dicken’s  A Christmas Carol, is not so much a story of Christmas as it is a tale of redemption. We know the story of the miser whose better angels…er, ghosts…portrayed for him another way to think, and he transformed his life. It simply happened that setting the story at Christmastime was economically better for Dickens. This story has been so enjoyed over time that the name of its main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, has slipped into the lexicon of English speakers. Whenever we think of someone who is stingy, miserable and mean spirited, don’t we think of him as being a “scrooge” or “scrooge-like?” What we have forgotten is the second half of this tale…the remaking of Scrooge into a character of generosity and love.  Perhaps there is also a part of us that can be remade so that we become more than we thought we could.

The course of spiritual love...

I think that what this should tell us is that redemption lives in the heart of every one of us, not just in one, splendid Divine son. The believer thinks that everything he does is shot through with divinity and that the course of spiritual love is always open. I think that at every level, whether we are believers or not, we somehow know that we have more to give.  Not a bad way at all to enter into this season of the heart!

No comments:

Post a Comment