For Paul’s and Aidan’s magazines, January 2016

Christmas is Emmanuel: God with us. Or rather, God within us.

We cannot attain the presence of God because God is already in us. We just don’t realize it. We have nothing new to learn, but an awful lot of things to unlearn, and we need to learn again to see clearly (clair-voyant).

Think about Christmas in our culture. All about more, bigger, better, faster, further, longer, more expensive. We’re hypnotized, sleep-walking, our greed and avarice fed by the narcotics of the evil advertising industry. Have a look at the film They Live! (YouTube again).

“If your eye offend you, pluck it out”, and replace it with one that sees clearly. “If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light”. Re-learn to see clearly, as a child. Re-connect with reality. Re-connect in Latin: re ligere. That is what religion is about. Not keeping rules, or gathering brownie points for club class in an afterlife, or asking God to cure your arthritis, or make events suit you, or some other entirely self-obsessed request. But reconnecting with reality. Be awake. Stay watchful. The advent call.

All spiritual disciplines have one purpose: to get rid of illusions so that we can see clearly what is, who we are, and what’s happening. What’s happening is that God is in us. Prayer is not about saying words or thinking thoughts. It is about becoming aware of this: God within and around. The contemplative is not just aware of God’s Loving Presence, but trusts, allows, and delights in it. Let go of trying to control.

When the disciples start jostling for power, Jesus plonks a child in front of them. The only people who can recognize and be ready for what he’s talking about are those who come with the mind and heart of a child—a “beginner’s mind”. The older we grow, the more we’ve been betrayed and hurt and disappointed, the more layers we wrap around ourselves to cover the vulnerable clarity of the childlike mind. Think Russian dolls with all the layers. Or onion skins. We must always be ready to recognize the layers, peel them away and begin to see afresh. To let new life grow in us.

This is the only new year resolution that is worth keeping. Be born in us today and every day and every minute of every day.

Incarnation is the beginning of real-ization.

(Much of this is stolen from that great source of wisdom, Richard Rohr)