We get it all wrong if we think that Christmas is anything but a season for love. From the origin of the day--the story of a woman and a man who traveled far and ended up in a stable where their child was born--to this very moment, the heart of Christmas is love. If we see it as anything other than that, we're looking at it through a warped perspective--not necessarily a negative or terrible perspective, but a warped one nonetheless. And that happens--we can get so caught up in buying gifts and preparing food and decorating the house and buying and wrapping presents that we stop seeing the holiday for what it truly is: an opportunity to share love with the people whom we love.When we think of the origins of all that we do, the love is quite obvious. We invite friends and family to our homes because we want to share what we have, and we want to show the love that we feel for them. And when friends and families are coming over, we naturally want to cook for them--sharing a meal is one of the oldest and most common traditions that is based on sharing love, for when we feed someone else, we're literally contributing to helping them live.We buy gifts for people because we think of what they need or would like to have, and we want to provide for that need or fulfill that desire, simply because we love them, not because we want anything from them. We spend time thinking of or looking for just the right gift for each person, and then we purchase it or make it for them, just because we want to show that person how much we care for them. After all, if we can give just the right gift, then we show that we actually know a person, and how many of us feel loved when someone else knows us well enough to know what we like? I know that I do.I think that much of the stress of Christmas comes from taking on too many tasks--too many ways to show others that we love them. Rather than enjoying simple holidays with simple gifts, we tend to feel that what we have to offer just isn't enough, so we decide to offer more. After all, more is better, right? Not at all.Showing our love is a tremendously important part of our lives, but when we try to overdo it, a lot of things can happen. We get stressed because we have so many things to do, and when that happens, what we're doing becomes less an act of love and more a task that has to be done. When we don't see what we're doing as something that benefits those we love, we see it as something else, don't we? If we can focus on the love, we can do the tasks lovingly; if we're worried that we won't finish baking in time to wrap all the presents, then we start to feel stress and our baking is one of the causes of stress.We've all seen it happen: good people with good hearts take on too much and they become cranky and stressed. They snap at people and they're not in nearly as good a mood as they usually are. Because they're stressed, the work that they're doing loses much of its meaning and they may even start to resent the work. The love becomes secondary, or even tertiary--if it's even there at all any more. And Christmas becomes, in their eyes, almost an enemy, a time of the year that brings stress and frustration and hectic days and nights.Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. We can refrain from trying to do everything for everyone, and when that question comes up, "If I don't do, who will?", then maybe the best answer is "No one." Perhaps that particular task doesn't need to be done this Christmas, and we can take a step towards simplifying our holiday season. Or perhaps there's someone else who is more than willing to do that certain task--a young child who wants to take on a new responsibility, maybe--and we can make things easier on ourselves by letting someone else do some of the things we normally feel that we need to do.It is a shame when we lose the beauty of the season to the stress of the season. But we really do have a choice in the matter--it's not always an easy choice, but the choice is there. And one thing I know for sure from experience is that I would much rather do without certain things and see the people I love enjoying the holiday than have "everything" at the cost of some people I love being so stressed out that they forget the message of love around which this holiday is based. Be the loving person, and put yourself in a position in which you're fully present to each moment the season brings, sharing your love actively with the people around you. You'll feel much better when you do so, and just as importantly, the people you love will be glad to have the full, loving you present.
I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
Henri Matisse
Sometimes, differences are the most important parts of our world. If there weren't differences between people and things and colors and sounds, our lives would be devoid of diversity and art and music. While differences are definitely something that should be celebrated by all of us, we unfortunately seem to react negatively to many of them. If someone doesn't do something the "right" way, if someone is wearing "weird" clothes or even "acting weird," we tend to react in ways that tell that person that he or she is doing something wrong by not conforming to the "norms" that are so important to us.
But if I'm a green and you're a yellow, that's a wonderful thing. And it's wonderful simply because it is so, not because of any sort of inherent value in either of the colors. What tends to happen to us, though, is that we like to fit in ourselves, so I would tend to gravitate towards other greens. I feel safe if I do so because we share something very important, and I'm never going to get mocked for my color by other greens, because they're green, too. And once I'm together with other greens, we like to look for things that set us apart from others in order to reinforce our self-images. We greens, after all, believe in A, B, and C, while I met a yellow yesterday who actually believes in D and E--those yellows sure are strange, aren't they?
But Matisse understands something very important from an artist's perspective: our differences are worth looking at because they're what allow us to distinguish between things. On a canvas, the ocean is blue and the sky is a different shade of blue--or even yellow or red if you're painting a sunset. Or the ocean can be grey, and the sky a different shade of grey. The trees are green while the pond is blue and the flowers are yellow and red. The differences make the things stand out, and we don't fault an artist for pointing out the differences between yellow flowers and red ones.
For some reason, though, we may find it offensive to point out that one person's skin is darker or lighter than ours. We stay quiet and don't talk about someone else's sexuality, because it's their business.
The important thing to remember, though, is that if no judgment is included in a statement, it's not offensive. If a person is simply making an observation, then what's the problem? Your skin is darker than mine. Cool. You're gay, and I'm not. No big deal. The problems arise when we tie in judgment with our observations--then we're judging others for something as simple as the pigments in their skin, or something as private and personal as their sexual preferences, or for their gender or age.
Matisse didn't judge when he painted differences. If he saw blue, I hope that he used blue paint to represent what he saw. Can you imagine an artist with this plan: "I won't paint any yellow flowers because yellow flowers aren't as good as orange ones"? It would be ridiculous.
Our differences make for an amazing world. None of us really want to imagine a world of identical beings thinking in identical ways and doing identical things--it would be a horrible nightmare. We really must celebrate our differences and accept others just as they are if we're really going to live full and fulfilling lives, for not to do so would be to deny the diversity of life, to limit ourselves to what we consider to be safe, while judging things that make us uncomfortable. And once we start judging other things, we'll never actually learn from them--and that's a terrible tragedy.
More on diversity
I recently discovered that there are two ways of looking at winter--the calendar way, which I'm used to, and the meteorological way, which I'm also used to on an intuitive level. The calendar way, of course, has winter starting on December 21 or so, and ending on March 21 or so. This is how I've learned to see winter all my life, and it's pretty much my go-to way of seeing the season.
But I like much better the idea of winter being the months of December, January and February. I like the fact that the other version of seeing the seasons seems to be more natural, more in tune with what really happens on our planet.
If we follow the meteorological way of looking at the world and its weather, then we just started winter, and I'm fine with that. I like winter--I like the cold, I like the coziness that the darker days and the harsher weather bring into our lives. In summer, I often feel restless if I'm indoors working--I want to be outside, doing something. In winter, though, it's very easy to pick up a book and curl up at one end of the couch and immerse myself in a novel or a good piece of non-fiction. Sometimes I may even want to turn on a good movie on a dreary afternoon, something that I almost never do during the seasons of better weather.
I also find that people are more willing to settle in and spend time together when the weather outside isn't so inviting. Winter is a time when get-togethers last a little longer and run a little more deeply. People tend to be in less of a hurry, for they haven't made so many plans, it seems. They're willing to just be, to have a cup of hot chocolate or coffee or tea and sit for a while and enjoy each other's company.
Of course, these are all tendencies, and not rules. There are people who are still always on the go whatever the weather, and people who need to be outdoors even if there's a blizzard going on. But for me, the intimacy of the season is one of its greatest beauties, and what we do with our winters is completely up to us. When I hear people complain about winter because of the weather, I hear someone who hasn't yet learned the beauty of simply sitting down and reading for a while, or spending time with others indoors rather than outdoors.
In the winter, I get more writing done, and I work on crafts more. I don't get to go on long bike rides or long runs nearly as much as I do in the summer, but I do get to spend that time baking something really good or making something really good. I can spend time playing board games with others or making puzzles on my own--the season doesn't rob us of the opportunities to do fun and special things; rather, it gives us a chance to live in tune with the seasons and do the things that the season offers and allows.
Winter's not a penalty. It's not punishment. Winter simply is, and it is what it is. If we want to pass pleasant winters and get the most of what they offer, then it's up to us to recognize what the season has to offer, accept the fact that it doesn't offer what it doesn't offer, and take full advantage of the opportunities at hand rather that wishing there were other opportunities available. Winter is a beautiful seasons in more ways than just the weather, and I'm looking forward to taking advantage of the world that winter has to offer, without trying to make it into anything it isn't. Winter's a beautiful season, and I want to take advantage of that beauty.
Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments,
embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour. -John Boswell
http://livinglifefully.com/winter.htm
(Meteorologists and climatologists break the seasons down into groupings of three months based on the annual temperature cycle as well as our calendar. We generally think of winter as the coldest time of the year and summer as the warmest time of the year, with spring and fall being the transition seasons, and that is what the meteorological seasons are based on. Meteorological spring includes March, April, and May; meteorological summer includes June, July, and August; meteorological fall includes September, October, and November; and meteorological winter includes December, January, and February.
from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/meteorological-versus-astronomical-seasons
Our fireplace is on right now. It's a gas fireplace, so I had to download an mp3 of the crackling sound of the fire, and I have that playing whenever the fireplace is on. This is only the second home I've ever lived in that has a fireplace, so I'm very happy that it's here, and I'm very grateful for it--right now, it's about ten degrees outside, so the fire that we have going is actually necessary to keep us warm enough to survive through temperatures like this. We have heat (for which I'm also grateful), but during the day we need to heat only the living space we're in, not the other rooms, so this fireplace is a very useful feature to have.
And I'm very grateful for it. It keeps us warm, it's beautiful, it's safe, and it creates an extremely cozy atmosphere in our living room, an atmosphere that I appreciate and love. It's just one of the many things in my life for which I'm thankful, and it's really important to me to keep those things in mind and to keep gratitude at the forefront of my life--for as David Steindl-Rast once said, gratitude is what brings joy into our lives.
It's kind of easy to feel gratitude for something that I like so much--but what about the things that aren't nearly as aesthetically pleasing--such as plumbing, for example, or readily available fuel for my car? Our world is simply full of things for which we can and should be grateful, for which we should be ready and willing to give thanks at any given moment. Books, music, light, art, windows, cupboards, tables, wood, blankets, comfortable couches--these are all things for which I'm tremendously grateful, and it's a list that I made simply by looking around myself for a couple of moments. A longer look would yield a much longer list, I'm sure.
But we spend far too much time, it seems, focusing on those things we lack, those things we wish we had, but don't. I'm not one of those who believe in the over-simplified theory that "if you don't have it, you weren't meant to have it," but I am one who believes that it's much more useful and helpful to focus on what we do have with a feeling of gratitude than it is to focus on that which is missing with feelings of regret or resentment or lack. My life changes significantly when my focus is on gratitude, and I don't want my life to be focused on what I'm missing, for what isn't here truly isn't relevant at the moment, unless it's something that I'm working hard at getting or achieving.
In her song "Three Gratitudes," Carrie Newcomer writes:
Every night before I go to sleep
I say out loud
Three things that I’m grateful for,
All the significant, insignificant
Extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life.
It’s a small practice and humble,
And yet, I find I sleep better
Holding what lightens and softens my life
Ever so briefly at the end of the day.
Sunlight, and blueberries,
Good dogs and wool socks,
A fine rain,
A good friend,
Fresh basil and wild phlox,
My father’s good health,
My daughter’s new job,
The song that always makes me cry,
Always at the same part,
No matter how many times I hear it.
Decent coffee at the airport,
And your quiet breathing,
The stories you told me,
The frost patterns on the windows,
English horns and banjos,
Wood Thrush and June bugs,
The smooth glassy calm of the morning pond,
An old coat,
A new poem,
My library card,
And that my car keeps running
Despite all the miles.
(visit Carrie at carrienewcomer.com for some
amazing music and poetry!)
And I don't think that I could have said it any better.
Please have a happy Thanksgiving, and keep your many blessings in mind as you make your way through the remaining days of your life!
I just read these words by Pema Chodron:
"Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already."
They really do resonate with me because I've spent most of my life trying to "fix" me, trying to become a "better" person. Fortunately, though, I say "most" of my life because more recently, I've come to a point of my life at which I'm willing to accept myself exactly as I am, without being such a harsh judge of myself that I make my own life miserable. I've made tons of mistakes, and many of them have harmed other people, but they've been mistakes. I've learned from them and I've moved on, always trying to work towards being the person I'm meant to be.
Of course, I couldn't define to you in words what "the person I'm meant to be" actually means, but I can feel it. I can feel that that person is supposed to share love in the best ways I know how; to give in the best ways I know how to the people who need; to teach; to grow; to encourage and inspire rather than discourage and cause despair.
But I like how Pema uses the word "befriending." It's one thing to accept myself as I am, and quite another to befriend that person. The mere idea of befriending ourselves suggests a duality, one that I feel is accurate--the self of the mind and the self of the spirit. When we bring those two things together, the resulting unity can be one of the most empowering forces that we'll ever know.
I think that on those days when everything seems to click, when everything falls together and we feel strong and capable and confident in all that we do--those are the days when our minds and our spirits are working in harmony. They've joined together in friendship or partnership--however you choose to view it--and our resulting behaviors give us a strength that we simply wish we had every day. Is it possible that we can have it every day? I do believe so.
While Pema is talking about befriending ourselves through meditation, I don't think that we absolutely must sit in meditation to make this happen--or at least, we need to find our own forms of meditation if we want to befriend ourselves and gain the strength of unity. For me, running is my main source of meditation--a way to clear my mind and allow it to settle. I also like to read passages and quotations and then simply sit and ponder them for a while. Music is also an important part of my life, and it often allows me to transcend what is happening in the moment and feel a part of something larger, vaster.
But we can also befriend ourselves through our internal conversations, those times when we get mad at ourselves for doing something silly. I like to come to my own defense, telling myself, "Wait a minute. Yes, that was silly, but every other person on this planet does silly things, too. Don't get down on yourself for a simple mistake. Don't judge yourself harshly because you've done something that other people disapprove of--just because they disapprove of it doesn't mean that it's wrong."
It's an odd idea, I know, defending myself from myself, but it's something that I do pretty regularly. I've grown up being pretty judgmental, especially of myself, and it's taken me a very long time to work through that tendency--and I'm not there yet. Thus, my need to defend myself from myself.
I want to be my own friend not just because it will benefit me, but because it can also benefit others. No matter how we choose to truly and authentically befriend ourselves, it's a good idea to get started now so that you can have a long and valuable friendship with a person who will very much appreciate you and who you are.
Acceptance is an interesting thing, isn't it? I hear a lot of people claim that they accept other people, but I also hear a lot of conditions on that acceptance. "I really like her, but if only she didn't talk so much." "You can be a part of our group, as long as your religious beliefs coincide with ours." Partners try to put pressure on their significant others to wear different clothes or get a different hair style or to act in different ways around friends or family. Parents constantly let their kids know (often inadvertently) that they'd be much more acceptable if they cleaned their rooms or did better in school or stopped hanging around certain someones.
Most of us would say that we're pretty accepting of others. Most of us feel that we're pretty tolerant and understanding of differences, and that we celebrate diversity, yet our words and actions often contradict these claims. Personally, I feel that I'm a pretty accepting person, but being so takes a lot of attention and effort: I'm often ready to write someone off because of a particular trait, and I have to remind myself that I'm not on this planet to judge others and reject them. Rather, I'm here to live and let live and not try to make other people live their lives in the ways that I think they should. Once I start trying to change other people--or try to convince them that they should change to please me--I'm doing something that really is quite unacceptable.
And I've done it much more than I'd like to admit over the course of my life. To give myself credit, though, I have changed this tendency, though again, it does take effort.
You are as you are, and that's something to celebrate, not criticize. You may make mistakes (we all do) and you may hurt other people (we all do) and you may be immature (we all are in some ways) and possibly even arrogant (ditto), but I really need to accept you for exactly what you are--because not accepting you won't change anything.
And here's the kicker: the fact that I accept you exactly as you are does not mean that I have to let you be a part of my life. If the truth of who you are is truly negative and/or harmful, then I would be making a huge mistake by letting you into my life. If your negativity is too strong, letting you into my life could bring me down significantly. Doing so could raise my stress level, cause me undue tension, worry me constantly, or even put me in danger. If you're the kind of person who is going to manipulate me, I accept that--but I'm not going to allow you to manipulate me. If you're the kind of person who's going to steal from me, same thing. You are who you are and it's not up to me to change you if you choose to be this way, but I don't want you in my life. Are you often drunk? Well, sorry--I choose to live a life that doesn't include alcohol abuse, and your life doesn't fit very well into that plan.
One of the obvious problems of allowing someone into your life exactly as they are is the horrible effect they can have on your life if you do so. We all know (or at least know of) women who refuse to accept the fact that their partner is abusive. We know of people who marry alcoholics because they refuse to accept that this person they love may have such a destructive trait. They deny that the behaviors they see are real, and thus end up paying a very high price for that denial--and many children pay that price, too.
So acceptance is extremely positive in at least two ways: when we accept someone for being exactly who they are and don't try to change them; and when we accept the fact that someone isn't exactly the best person to have in our lives and we make the decision not to have them as such as long as the negative behaviors continue. Acceptance becomes less positive when we accept someone just as they are, even when the person they are is someone who's bound to hurt us--in that case, the "acceptance" seems more like denial, and it truly can cause harm.
So let's be careful how we define the term, and let's be careful to whom we extend our acceptance. Remember, it's important to accept the fact that a person is addicted to drugs, but it's not healthy to accept that person "just as they are." On the other hand, if their behavior or way of being doesn't harm others, then our acceptance may be one of the best things we can share with them as they realize that someone does, indeed, love them just as they are.
It truly frustrates me to see just how much we've normalized conflict these days. It's everywhere and it seems to be unavoidable--from politics to sports to entertainment to relationships to people struggling to get rights, conflict seems to be the driving force behind our society these days. After all, conflict gets you more news coverage than simply doing what you're supposed to do. Conflict grabs headlines, while simply doing our jobs well gets us very little recognition; imposing our own ideas on how things should be gets us more attention than letting others be as they are and accepting them and their lifestyles.
Constant conflict is a sign of a lack of acceptance. We don't want things to be as they are--we want them changed. "Those people shouldn't be living that way" is an invitation to conflict from the people who are going to defend those people's rights to live as they wish. Many people see acceptance as a weakness, but it really is one of the strongest ways of living our lives that we have. When I accept you just as you are, then there's no need for me to start any conflict with you because I don't see any need for you to change--not your lifestyle, not your sexual orientation, not your mind. You are as you are, and that's fine as long as you're not harming others.
We can disagree with each other--we can even have arguments about things we believe and still get along very well. Unfortunately, though, we tend to see conflict now as a sign that we aren't getting along, that this person really isn't a friend if we don't see eye-to-eye about immigration or the Women's World Cup. Because so much of our conflict these days has to do with judgment, we all turn our defense mechanisms to high as soon as someone disagrees with us because we don't want to be judged, and rightly so. Judgment is a way of telling someone that they're right or wrong, even though virtually none of us are truly in a position to be able to judge other people. We can most certainly disagree with them, but the words "judge not and you shall not be judged" are rather timeless, though these days we may need to change them to "I'll judge you but you'd better not judge me."
This constant conflict is making it difficult to simply relax and enjoy life, to get the most out of each day that we live. It's difficult to relax when we don't know when someone else is going to judge us and criticize us for our actions or our beliefs. It's hard to enjoy the day when we have no idea what the next source of conflict is going to show up--and it may show up on social media, where we're criticized in front of potentially the entire world. How many posts on Facebook telling us that this person has done something horrible have turned out to be completely false, yet we've passed them on and helped to perpetuate the conflict with a simple click of a mouse?
It's no wonder that our young people are both hyper-critical and hyper-sensitive these days. To them, conflict is the norm they've grown up witnessing, and it's only a matter of time before it affects them, too--if it hasn't already. While they tend to put on brave faces and shrug off the fact that they face attacks on social media if they're not careful, and criticism from many people who have come to view conflict as "normal," and potential conflict about every choice they may make from politics to clothing that they wear, the truth is that this wears them down and makes it very difficult for them to truly live their lives fully.
It's difficult to write about this topic in a truly cohesive way because it's one that deserves a book or three, not just a few paragraphs. I believe that my main point is that our world needs more of us to pull back from the conflict, to allow others to be just what they are without judging or criticizing them. We can be that "safe person" to whom others can come when they want a word of encouragement or a listening ear instead of more conflict and stress. And we can teach our young people that while conflict does happen, it's not necessarily as important as we make it out to be. We don't all have to jump into every argument with our own perspective; we don't need to try to make others believe what we believe.
Our world has enough conflict. While we don't want to ignore injustice when we see it, let us pick and choose our battles so that we're involved in that conflict only when absolutely necessary, only when we're defending the rights of those who are losing their rights, only when helping others who are unable to help themselves. Let us accept more and criticize less, and let us be the beacons of peace and understanding that others can depend on when they need some peace and understanding in their lives. We can live fully in a world full of constant conflict, but doing so requires a constant series of decisions on our part, and a constant commitment to contributing to the positive energy of the world rather than the negative.
