I went to church on Tuesday. It was Christmas Eve and it was a good time to celebrate life. Gratitude for someone being born is not something I experience lightly. And it is not that I live in fond remembrance of someone who once was.
Instead, I find I appreciate what lives in people‘s hearts right here and right now. Whether that is a reflection of the Christ child or something people have developed on their own makes little difference. It is not relevant where it comes from but it is relevant that it is recognized. For the life that flows in me flows in you. It is a wonderful expression of being, capable of so many forms of expression. Too many to count actually. For each one of us is unique, yet at the same time intimately connected. Purely by virtue of us all being.
Now you may argue that the experience we each have must be different from another’s. And while that may appear to be true, if you look at the one who’s having the experience, who is aware of the experience, that one may well be the same. Have you ever taken a step back from what is going on in your life? And just been aware of what it is you are feeling that moment? Or thinking? Or sensing with your body? Where your focus just for a moment goes away from the thing you are aware of and rests in just being aware?
I have. Increasingly so. And what I find is that when I’m not caught up in that which I am experiencing, there is a sense of peace. Gratitude just for being alive and being aware of what is going on right here and right now. When I am just being rather than focusing on what needs to be done. When I let go of all those thing that clamor for my attention; all the distractions of life. When I don’t have to do and can finally relax. My body relaxes. Tension goes.
Perhaps this is what Jesus talked about when he talked about peace. In this place or space or state where there seems to be only acceptance and love and gratitude and connection and joy.
Thank you for being. I am.
