Over the course of this first December weekend, at an opulent gathering of friends, we went around the table answering the question, “what’s the significance of Christmas to you?” We all acknowledged the spiritual import of the holiday, and because this was an international gathering, there was acknowledgment from widely divergent religious paradigms.
But we came back around the table again to touch upon that which we could only identify as the “spirit” of this time of year. For some, this is a time to focus more intently upon family and close friends, to offer the gifts of time and food, to open our homes, be they large or small, to experience something cozy and comforting, something timeless needing to be captured at least to the extent of celebrating it.
One person put it most succinctly by saying this is a time of Love. I have to use the capital letter here, because this is how she meant it: a huge, overflowing of good will, a true sense of caring, an increase of patience and a better space for listening, that which transcends emotion to become pure expression.
For me, this time of year is when the sense of possibility is most tangible. I would almost say possibility is so tangible as to feel magical—a feeling that what seems beyond reach might suddenly appear. That’s how Christmas was for me in childhood—the sudden and magical appearance of Santa, who mysteriously knew what I wanted, and managed to bring it down the chimney just in time for the morning of December 25th, when my sister and I would race down the hallway in our pajamas to gasp at the spectacle of a tree that had appeared over night, with presents gleaming under its branches.
As an adult, I’ve heard some parents disapprove of Santa, saying he’s little more than a fraud perpetrated on children who should in fact be told the truth. This may be true from a head perspective. Taken literally, this is a myth easily disproved. We could always go up to department store Santas and yank on their beards, or point out that not every house has a chimney.
But the heart knows better. It knows without having to be told that there are forces beyond logic at work in the universe, laws of harmony that supersede the apparent discords that tend to ensnare us. This is why I created Milford-Haven as the little town of infinite possibilities. When our footsteps are more sure, when our ears are attuned to raw possibility in its most infinite sense, then we remember what the heart knows—that with Spirit, all things are possible.
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