The Christmas Miracle

Writes Marianne Williamson . . .

Christmas heralds the salvation of humanity through our ability to love one another. It is not through simply believing in Jesus but rather through following his example that this miracle will come to pass. His birth is not only a miracle that happened two thousand years ago; it is a miracle that happens in each of us in any moment when we choose love instead of fear.

. . . Being a “believer” in Jesus of itself means little, while being a “disciple” of Jesus is infinitely transformative. The words “disciple” and “discipline” come from the some root, and to be his disciple means to discipline ourselves to think and to love like he does. There is a line in A Course in Miracles where it says that his way isn’t difficult, it’s just different. I find that to be true time and time again as I admonish myself, “It’s not that hard to be kinder, more charitable, more generous, more forgiving, Marianne – it’s just that the world has trained you to think differently.” What’s hard at times is getting over my resistance to doing it. Miracles are a choice. Surrendering our defensiveness, our fear, our belief in limitations, our judgments, our obsession with past and future, our attack thoughts, our lack of forgiveness – the rigor needed for the effort is an effort that spans a lifetime.

According to A Course in Miracles, “light means understanding:” an understanding of who we really are, which is love itself, and why we are here, which is to love one another. Truly it can be said that humanity today does not understand. We have fallen asleep to who we are and we have forgotten why we are here. The Course points out that in the Bible it says Adam fell asleep and nowhere does it say that he woke up.

Yet it also says that while there has been no mass awakening, it is time for one. In fact we will awaken or our nightmares will overwhelm us. From climate change to war, from poverty to all manner of injustice, the problems of the world were not made by God, they were made by us. And clearly it will take more than a new law, a new institution, or a new logical conclusion to unmake those things. It will take a change in us, an awakening in our hearts.

– Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from "The Arrival of Light
and the Peace It Portends"
Transform
December 19, 2022

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Christmas for Mystics
• How the Light Comes
• Honoring the Darkness While Remembering the Light
• Christmas 2020: A Time of Loss and Grief, Gratitude and Hope
• The Joy of Christmas (2019)
• Christmas 2018 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Christmas in America, 2018
• Something to Think About – December 25, 2018
• Christmas 2017 – Reflections and Celebrations
• No Room for Them
• Getting Into the Holiday Spirit
• Christmas 2016 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Something to Think About – December 25, 2016
• The Magi and Our Journey to God
• Christmas 2015 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Our Story Too
• Christmas 2014 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Christmastide Approaches (2013)
• Celebrating the Coming of the Sun and the Son
• The Christmas Tree as Icon, Inviting Us to Contemplate the “One Holy Circle” of Both Dark and Light
• Something to Cherish (2012)
• Christmas in Australia (2010)
• John Dear on Celebrating the Birth of the Nonviolent Jesus
• A Bush Christmas (2009)
• Clarity and Hope: A Christmas Reflection (2007)

Image: Michael J. Bayly.