Sunday, December 25, 2022

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.


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