A Meaning of Christmas

Christmas can have many meanings for many people.  They can all be different.  Christmas of course is about the coming of God to live with man to offer him hope, new life and salvation.  It is about God putting on flesh and living amongst us.  He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, Philippians 2:7. The way we celebrate Christmas tells a lot of the what sort of meanings we attribute to Christmas.  Going to a religious celebration like a Mass can indicate a religious significance you place in celebrating it.  God gave His son as gift to humanity; a most perfect gift - the gift of life to be given away as a supreme sacrifice.  The gifts that we give each other during Christmas echoes faintly the supreme gift-giving of God himself.  The gifts we give one another are usually wrapped .  This is  designed to give an element of surprise and at the same time to make the gift appear more attractive.  God came as a human being wrapped in human flesh, the Emmanuel, God-with-us.  He came as a surprise.  The religious leaders did not recognise him and rejected him and finally led him to death. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. John 1:11.  They did not find him attractive at all.  Despite the hundreds of years of prophecy about his coming, when he finally came, only a scant number of people caught a glimpse of who he was.  He came to be part of his family, to be up close to the people he created. Hor this reason, a meaning I adopt for Christmas is being close to the family.  It is a time to see each other.  It doesn't really matter what gifts are given.  Everybody has their own budget to work around.  The gift is an excuse to see one another in a different light, to forgive for whatever faults, and to accept one another as having placed in this earth to be gifts to one another, with no wrappers, with no surprises, but just as we are.  The best gift anybody can give is just being there, being present, holding some attention, indicating a person's worth and value, remembered and not forgotten.  'Forget'  is such a lonely verb- so sad and depressing.  It is not misdemeanour to forget intentionally - it is a crime.  It is an action of denial which is like withholding or grabbing back an intended gift.  The gift represents your giving of yourself.  So the action of denial is in a large way a denial of your own self.  With that denial you lose a large chunk of yourself which can result in tragic consequences for your mind, body and spirit.  So try to remember this time in December...

Nearing Christmas

Two days before Christmas.  The heat goes on ensuring discomfort and sometimes dismay sweltering under the Aussie sun .  Even if you hide under the shade, the persistent heat pricks the skin and reaches all your cavities. 

I have met  yesterday the famous dog of my daughter, half Corgi and half Rottweiler.  I'm not sure if that is a good combination.  I thought that he was made with artificial insemination for his parents for sure don't have similar dimensions to enable natural procreation.  They had come from Adelaide to be in Sydney for the Christmas holidays and to convene a huge party for my granddaughter in January.  They had been travelling for two days, with a trailer attached to their suv.

Last night I dreamt about a girl I had wanted to approach and talk to for the longest time.  She had become a stranger in my life, disdaining to even acknowledge my presence.  The most important people to her now are those who had nothing to do with bringing her to the world and taking care of her for a time and a half.  Nothing much I can do for her hating me for re-marrying after the death of her mother.  In my dream she approached me.  I asked who she was.  And she just said, "It's me."  And it was her, finally sweet and approachable.  We embraced.  It was a great gift from God who from time to time gives us dreams to instill hope and to signal the beginning of the manifestation of something historic, dramatic, and life-changing.  It is a good gift.  It is a perfect gift.  I can only reinforce the dream in my consciousness and play it over and over until the full manifestation comes and burns into physical, palpable reality.   I had sent her my blessings last night even before the dream.