Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.” ~ Dr. Seuss
Practicing HOPE is certainly the theme of Week One Advent celebrations, but the action of holding onto HOPE is also depicted in almost every Christmas Story written, or made for TV movie.
In spiritual practice, we are often “invited” to consider questions such as, “What would Jesus do, or what would Buddha do?” Asking ourselves this type of question helps to raise our consciousness. But now that the Christmas Season is here, we are reunited with some of our most beloved fictional characters that also have a lesson to teach us. So which Christmas character or characters would you most want to emulate this season?
Me? I am most intrigued with the Whos in Whoville.
Why you ask? They prepared for the holiday with a spirit of great Joy. They engaged with all of their actions expecting the best. But when the hour came to reap their reward, all of the earthly treasures were gone. All the work was for naught. But did they suffer? Did they lament? Did they crumble and contemplate, “Why did this happen to me? No. They sang.
They sang about absolute LOVE, which is the true spirit of this season… and absolute LOVE is the cause for HOPE.
So what character(s) inspire you this season??
What About Mary??
HOPE is refuge for uncertainty.
When I was a little girl, my grandmother gave me a copy of The Children’s Bible. I loved that book! Having it my hands made me feel like a specially chosen child of God. Silly I suppose, but to me, at the age of 5, that book was pure magic, and I was magic when reading it.
Just about all the bible stories amazed me, but I remembering thinking about Mary all of the time, and how special she must have been that an angel came to tell her that she had been chosen by God.
I was too young to really understand the totality of a virgin birth, but I do recall that the only thing I would think about was: how Mary must have been filled with a sense of Glorious hope and uncertainty at the same time…feeling happy, yet also perhaps quite overwhelmed.
I would also wonder if an angel came to me if I would be afraid, or if I would have hope or doubt to not only believe the angel, but live as God wanted me to. Apparently, I have been a spiritual philosopher from the “get go.” I would think about these types of things for hours.
Now, 53 years later, I still think about Mary and the hope that she must have held onto. Did she ponder uncertainty in her own mind, “is this really true what the angel told me,” or was she able to have firm faith simply from the “Word(s)” of the angel?
Did she have to “wait” and see to satisfy any doubts? Or did God’s LOVE fill her with full KNOWING that her mission was True and Divine..all she had to do was live it? Did Mary hope, believe, or know that the angels words were true?
Ponder this weekend:
If you were a Christmas character, which one would you most want to emulate?
What gifts inside of you are Divine?
Do you trust the Inner Gifts that God has given you to share with the world, or do you hide them with uncertainty?
Practice HOPE, and let your Light Shine!
TODAY’S REFLECTION
“You keep us waiting. You, the God of all time, Want us to wait. For the right time in which to discover Who we are, where we are to go, Who will be with us, and what we must do. So thank you … for the waiting time.”
~ John Bell, quoted in The Westminster Collection of Christian Prayers, compiled by Dorothy M. Stewart
About Melinda Johnston: Melinda has over 30 years of study and practice in religious culture, practical philosophical, metaphysical sciences and understanding for the historical “webs” of human history, which have impacted most of our modern religions and spiritual practices.
She has created a variety of alternative methods for celebrating life and seeing the “sacred” in simplicity. Her knowledge offers students and clients a unique insight into mindful inner dialogue, which in turn honors and expands one’s innate wisdom and allows for one’s perfect state of wellness to exist.
Because she is well versed in multiple facets of religious and sacred philosophy, including the Eastern philosophies of Buddhism and Vedanta, Metaphysical consciousness, and the Science of Yoga, her gentle teaching method allows one’s self knowledge to expand to deeper level, naturally.
As owner of The Buddhi Institute her goal is to teach practical methods and programs that incorporate mindfulness, along with other ancient wisdoms, for the integration of mind and spirit so a sense of complete wellness arises almost effortlessly into one’s day to day living.
Melinda's website: https://buddhiinstitute.com/
