Christmas time is family time. Kids come home from college, families pack up the kids and travel to the grandparents….most people make an effort to see family members sometime during the holiday season.
Sometimes when we are sitting around talking after a meal, or after a game watched or a game played, we start reminiscing about family events and stories. We tell about times that made us laugh or cry, times that have now become oft-repeated legends within the family.
One of my friends recently told me about her family’s Christmas meal a couple of years ago. Everyone between the ages of 10 and 20 had to sit at the kids’ table, so naturally, the older kids started to show off for the younger kids. Jokes were told, songs were sung, and then finally one of the teenage guys proclaimed that he could put his finger through the flame of the candle on the table without getting burned. He amazed the cousins at the table by doing it repeatedly. Minutes later, he reached to get the rolls, and somehow he leaned his head right into the flame, setting his hair on fire.
My friend said, “You’re on fire.”
He said, “Yeah, I know.”
“No — your hair is really on fire.” — and she emptied her water glass on his head.
I’m pretty sure that will become one of the legends of that family.
But the holidays are also a time of facing our family skeletons and difficult issues. Sometimes we don’t want to be with our family members because…..well, I don’t need to tell you. Some of them are just difficult to be around.
Yes, Christmas is the season we most often see our families, but it’s also the season of memories of disappointment and embarrassment. Memories of conversations that went off the rails, moments we all wish we could wash from the walls of our mind. For some reason, the disappointments bother us more at Christmas time. And of course, with each passing year, what we need and are able to give to our families changes. And I’m not talking about the tangible gifts. I’m talking about what we give and need emotionally from each other. What we mean to each other.
It’s also a time when we are very tempted to compare ourselves and our families to the hallmark images of the holidays. You might be a little jealous of the beautiful pictures on FB of families going ice skating together, wrapped in blankets, hugging each other and drinking hot chocolate, or the families that post their matching pajama pictures.
Remember…..it’s just a moment of their lives. They have the same problems we all do. Those pictures were posed.
One of my friends posted a brave picture this week — she and her four daughters in matching pajamas, displaying very realistic behavior. She titled the post: All is calm, all is bright.
An aspect of the holidays that I always worry about is the holiday depression that can set in. When the magic of Christmas isn’t happening, we are much more prone to feel sadder and lonelier than at any other times of the year.
And when I think of Christmas despair, I am reminded of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
In the movie, the book, and the play we meet George Bailey, a man who is in despair. He is standing at a bridge ready to end his life, because his life has been destroyed. He is bankrupt and facing prison. In order to provide for his wife and kids, he figures he is worth more dead than alive. He would have thrown himself off the bridge had an angel from heaven not intervened and stopped him.
As if that isn’t bad enough, George Bailey goes even deeper into despair. He not only believes that his future’s not worth living, but that his past wasn’t worth living either. He thinks that every suffering he endured, every piece of good that he tried to do was not only pointless, but actively harmful, and he and the world would be better off if he had never existed at all. As the movie unfolds, George begins to see that his views about his effect on the universe are wrong. Each thing that happened to him impacted something good for someone else.
Everywhere he turns, he finds out that his existence wasn’t bad. His struggles and sufferings did accomplish something and his painful existence wasn’t a tragedy, but a gift to the people around him. And that’s the phrase I want us to remember about this movie:
Each one of us has the gift of existence. We are alive. We have something to offer to others.
We have all had our George Bailey moments —feeling like the world might be better off without us. We have all been through tragedies and pain. When we look back over those episodes of darkness, we are usually able to find the same relief that George Bailey discovered.
Our life does have meaning. We do matter. It is a reminder of the interaction of light and dark. The dark makes light more precious and meaningful. When we can get through the dark times, we see that there was indeed a light at the end of the tunnel of darkness. A light of hope. Always, the light brings us hope. And when we can finally draw a breath and reflect back, just as George Bailey saw, we realize God’s greatest gift to us: the gift of a wonderful life. A life of wonder.
Our life is filled with wonder. When we were a child, we saw the world through eyes filled with wonder. We looked without inhibition. Cheering every leaf, playing with every grain of sand, touching every blade of grass, enjoying the wind in our faces, overwhelmed by the chill of water. Everything was exhilarating. Every moment was a wow moment. So much joy and ecstasy. Jumping, hopping, running, exploding. We all felt like that when we were children.
And look at us now. We’re tired. Disenchanted. We don’t care about flowers or gardens, or wind, or birds, or leaves or rain. We are tired. Tired of the same people every day. Tired of traveling the same route every day. We want something new. Why aren’t our eyes full of wonder anymore? What happened to the wonder?
Well, the simple answer is that we grew up. We aged. There is a verse in the Bible that addresses this phenomenon: “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. But when I became an adult, I put childish ways aside.” — I Corinthians 13:11
But here is a secret about this aging business: we are still the same child down inside. The person, the soul that we are doesn’t age, but our bodies certainly do. I don’t know about you, but I am surprised every time I look into a mirror. Who is that? When did this happen? I look really bad for 36.
Buddhist monk, Bhikkhu Bodhi describes it this way:
“We are always still and not moving at all. Time passes through us. We don’t pass time. Whatever belongs to this world changes and moves. In childhood, youth, old age, the ageless in you remains ageless and does not change. But the body ages because it follows the rule of nature.” — Bhikkhu Bodhi
I am going to adopt that phrase “time passes through us — we don’t pass time.”
This Christmas season, when we are with family and friends, let’s connect with that ageless part of us — that child within us. Let’s look with wonder and surprise at the gathering, at the food, at the people — as though we are meeting them for the first time. Let’s be gentle as we speak to them, as though we don’t know them very well. Unable to recall their annoying traits.
Let’s look at the lights, the decorations, the delight of each moment with the excitement of a child whose body can’t contain the joy. Like it’s a whole new experience. Not like “here we go again.” Not like we are tired, and we are looking at the same old people.
Let’s take stock of the struggles we have overcome, the darkness that has turned into light, the personal goals we have reached, the accomplishments we made and then let’s smile and thank God because it is, after all, a wonderful life, indeed. Amen.
Radio speaker and author, Earl Nightingale wrote:
“Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.”― Earl Nightingale
May we be more like children and find the wonder in our wonderful lives in the weeks ahead.
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