Thursday, January 2, 2014

CHRISTMAS SEASON

LIGHTED CHRISTMAS TREE

Robert Trabold


Dim dark room – full of mystery

Christmas tree

soft lights – varied colors

gentle yellow – clean white – stronger red – deep blue

a few twinkling ones -

light covered with mystery and silence.

I bath myself in soft light –

silence - quiet.

Beauty touches me – whispering the mysterious -

will not leave me.

I sit in the quiet – dreaming in beauty.

Someone is knocking at the door -

in the soft - gentle loveliness -

mysterious presence – my Beloved -

beautiful - good – more than the soft light of the tree.

He gives me hope – soft light of the tree

penetrates darkness.

My Beloved will not leave me alone in the night - cold.

He calls me to hope – not to lose heart.

Beauty of the lights is stronger than darkness.


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CHRISTMAS SEASON

Robert Trabold

            Living in the industrial world as in the United States, the Christmas season can be a mixed bag.  On the one hand, we are battered by our commercially orientated culture with its mania for Black Friday and the many sales that are being presented.  It is sad to say that as soon as Halloween is over, the decorations for that celebration give way to pictures of Santa Claus, red decorations in the stores highlighting what is on sale and Christmas candy. Radio, TV and the internet are flooded with news of sales. Retailers are competing with Amazon trying to outdo each other with discounts on the many items.
           
          While we have to live in the above, there is another current that is present in Advent and the weeks following the Christmas feast.  If we listen carefully to the nativity story, it is full of symbols of the night, light shining in the darkness, shepherds watching their sheep in the quiet of the night and mountains, angels appearing in the sky announcing and singing of a newborn savior, three magi arriving from afar and flowing a star in the heavens, child born in humble surroundings in a stable and laying in a manger. These symbols and stories lead us into another direction from the noise and clamor of the commercialism around us. The whole story is bathed in the darkness and night which are symbols of mystery and the unknown. But the night does not dominate all because there is light and angels appearing in the light singing and announcing good news. The shepherds themselves are marginal people to main stream society and live and work in the mountains exposed to the day and night and the vagaries of the weather. They lead their sheep high into the hills and can look vast distances into the beauties of nature. Angels are not human beings but messengers from another world who want to tell us something. Out of the blue appear three kings from faraway lands in the east. They are following a star in the heavens which is announcing the birth of a new king. Strange also is that  they find this child, a new king, not in the palaces of Jerusalem but born of a poor family and the baby is lying in a manger in a stable surrounded by his humble parents and the animals of the place. This Christmas story then in loaded with symbols and events which are quite different from the noise of our commercial culture. We are lead into another world of signs and mystery that is deeper from our ordinary life and wants to transform our way of living and that of the world.

            As we progress in the Christmas season, we are careful not to be overwhelmed by the commercial culture of our world but to step back and take a look at the deep symbols of the nativity story and to see how they want to orientate our life. This means that despite our many activities of this season, we take time out to experience the deeper meanings of this religious event and what it means for ourselves and our world. We enter into the darkness and the light that is shining in it. We slow down our activities as the mania for presents and gifts subside.  We are faithful to our two periods of contemplation each day so that we can understand more and feel the deeper meanings of the coming of Christ. We keep an eye on the shepherds who were marginal and poor people and because of their limited income did not have many things of the world. It is a signal that we have to cultivate a distance and indifference from material things and not let them dictate how we live. Our silent contemplation can help us achieve this goal. To enter in the deeper meanings of the nativity story, we need not be too busy. We look at our schedule and many activities and cut away what may been unnecessary so that we have time to breathe and absorb what the Christmas stories are telling us. This can be a challenge because we have many modern communication devices and these are always bombarding us with messages, some important, others not at all. We need a dimension of silence and quiet so that we can hear the hidden messages of the nativity. We cannot be too busy and so not enter into the other and deeper side of this lovely time.

            As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Christmas season is a mixed bag and we have to sort out what is really important. Our modern commercial world does not always make this very easy. We however have to try. The deep symbols of the nativity narrative are knocking at our door. Let us use the time of our contemplation which is one of silence and quiet and a reduced schedule to open ourselves to the messages that the baby Jesus wants us to receive at this time of his birth. We then orientate ourselves to the deeper meanings of our religious faith which will also help us lead a more authentic and deeper Christ-like life in the New Year.

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