(No Jokes--No Hidden Meaning)
Thomas W. Shepherd, D.Min.
I really love it. Mall parking lots clogged with car
headlights like a starry night sky in the country. Inane, convivial music
wafting over hordes of harried, hopeful, hesitantly happy holiday hunters. Shop
'til you're top-heavy, arms full of packages, box-crammed plastic bags dangling
from every finger.
Sure, it's an ordeal. Sure, I procrastinate every year.
Sure, I spend in December, then spend January through October paying off the
credit cards. Sure, I talk to myself like a pit bull puppy at obedience school:
Bad boy, bad prosperity teacher—shame on you! But I don't care.
Do you hear that, world? I don't care!
I love this inane, over-rated, superficial, commercialized
hollow-day like Jesus must have loved little children and the first sunshine on
Easter morning. And I have three reasons.
When I was 18, I was driving around at two in the morning,
completely crying and alone and scared. I drove by this magazine stand that had
this Rolling Stone that I was on the cover of, and it said, “Winona Ryder: The
Luckiest Girl in the World.” And there I was feeling more alone than I ever
had.[1]
2) Christmas changes everybody's (or most people's) internal thermometer to warm-up setting. Some people say they
see auras. Mine has been described as several colors by several different
people; I don't know what that means. Either the seers are not seeing the same
thing, or my spiritual energy has a chameleon setting. Whatever.
Christmas, however, transforms the psychological world of
humanity like a wave of many colors, sweeping across the mindscape to warm the
human psyche. Sure, it stresses people and drives some into the cold of
despair...but the warm, soothing default for the season still plays in the
background from every station in the inter-locking network of endless Christmas
music: Do you hear what I hear? Joy to
the world! Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas! I'll Be Home...if only in my
dreams...
3) Christmas gives us an excuse to hope. All right—maybe the angels decorating
the mall were made in Shanghai and most of the gifts won't survive to Valentine’s
Day, so what? Do you remember that old truism, “It's the thought that counts...”?
Well, as a Unity minister, I now realize the text should read: “It's the THINKING that counts!”
Fighting the crowds can be read as mingling with the holiday
throngs, while those harried chores and endless items to cross off lists, can
just as easily be read as joyful preparations and lots of fun stuff to do.
(Stop muttering those naughty words. I'm just trying to work an affirmation here...)
Even if it sounds idealistic—or maybe because of it—Christmas gives humanity an
opportunity to pause and believe, if only for a little while, that peace on
earth and goodwill are actually possible. For one brief shining moment, humanity
recognizes that heaven and earth are coextensive.
So, if you haven't been to a crowded shopping space yet this
year, or if you’re wondering how late the discount stores stays open Christmas
Eve, or if you just want to go window-gazing again—let me suggest a radical
departure: Bless the mall! See the
shopping centers as holy ground. Go to the crowded places and say a silent
prayer, that all these people may have someone to give and receive love, and the
spirit of prosperity may spread across the human species, so the true gift of
Christmas may be born in everyone's heart. If that doesn’t raise your
prosperity consciousness, buy a nice gift and send it to yourself...
Do you hear that, world? I don't care!
2) Christmas changes everybody's (or most people's) internal thermometer to warm-up setting. Some people say they see auras. Mine has been described as several colors by several different people; I don't know what that means. Either the seers are not seeing the same thing, or my spiritual energy has a chameleon setting. Whatever.
3) Christmas gives us an excuse to hope. All right—maybe the angels decorating the mall were made in Shanghai and most of the gifts won't survive to Valentine’s Day, so what? Do you remember that old truism, “It's the thought that counts...”? Well, as a Unity minister, I now realize the text should read: “It's the THINKING that counts!”
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