The same currents that run through our human blood also run through the swirling galaxies and the myriad of life-forms that pervade this planet: one and the same evolutionary current moves through all—a single self transcending current of all-pervading energy that brings new life out of seeming catastrophe.

At that point, our hatred is pointed toward the messenger, because he or she has taken away our needed object of hatred. If we need to hate, we will destroy anyone who tells us our hatred is the problem. 

Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself.

We’ll just have to go ahead. If you wait until you’re good enough or you’re skillful enough or until you are sure of yourself and are certain to get it right, it may never happen. At some point there’s no help for it, and you just go ahead.... 

If we take his wise words to heart, every annoying person, every odious task, every frustrating interruption, everything we wish we could wish away, can be considered pieces of a puzzle without which our life would not only be less interesting, but less complete.

Letting go and changing negative thoughts takes practice. It begins with recognizing, as adults, that we are not defined by labels given us when we were children.  Let us accept and release the beauty and love we hold within.  

Because it is scary to let go of our ego and to cooperate with the relocation process Jung speaks about, we instinctively hold tight to our notion of our self even if we know that doing so prevents the possibility of being more calm, joyful, strong, and unruffled.

My resolve to continually reach out beyond my own small walls is renewed. The energy that leaps and twirls in each part of existence commands my attention and draws me into a cosmic embrace. I sense again the limitless love that connects us all.

In a state of grace, the soul is like a well of limpid water, from which flow only streams of clearest crystal. Its works are pleasing both to God and man, rising from the River of Life, beside which it is rooted like a tree.

~ Saint Teresa of Avila 

There are many reminders of the Cosmic dimension to our lives in the Christmas story.  The star of Bethlehem is one such reminder: the heavens themselves, the cosmos, is part of the birth of each of us and part of the incarnation of each of us.

Church Seasons come and go, and we are about to move from Advent to the Christmas Season. This new season is a time of incarnation, an occasion to choose a personal fresh birth, additional growth, and unfamiliar encounters.

There is no other truth, or light outside of love. Like a fish living and swimming in the ocean searching for water, we too search for God’s love, ignorant of it’s all-pervasive presence in our lives.

The more whole we are, the more vital will be our relationships. We will bring into our being with others a sense of self in which egocentric need is diminished and the ability to connect whole-to-whole is possible.

But God, being a free spirit, cannot be captured in our imaginings nor in our ego’s need to possess. God is referred to by many different names in many different religions. All the names for God are good, and no name is better than another.

We are waiting; for the Brussel sprouts to cook, for the decorations to come out, for the tree to go up, for the sales in the shops for the light to gather, for the time to pause, for the universe to hold its breath, for the baby to quicken, for the travellers to arrive, for the angels to clear their throats, for shepherds to hear the singing, for the prophets to be fulfilled, for the promise to be believed, for Incarnation, we are waiting.

Unfortunately, there is no mirror in the world where you can catch a glimpse of your soul. You cannot even see your own body completely. If you look behind you, the front of your body is out of view. You can never be fully visually present to yourself.

It is birth from within that transforms the self and is expressed by letting go of old patterns of thinking that create barriers and imprison us in narrow, lifeless places. This Advent time of waiting is an opportunity for us to wait with all humans whose weary lives turn slowly toward re-awakened joy.

We are all born sacred beings because we are given grace from the life breath of Spirit. We are not who others say we are. We identify ourselves by the way we live this gift of life. We are born into Love and no matter what prejudices we were taught as children, as adults, we can choose to live into acceptance and Love for all things living and inanimate.

In the Celtic tradition, the Garden of Eden is not a place in space and time from which we are separated. It is the deepest dimension of our being from which we live in a type of exile. It is our place of origin or genesis in God.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place; and in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.