Harmony Through the Holidays

Themes In This Blog:

·       Love is never small.

·       See beyond immediate perceptions.

·       Find time to be still.

We are all familiar with the encouragement—at times more of an exhortation—to take time to go within as the days grow shorter and the holidays approach. We are called to practice self-care, so we are better able to manage stress, stay in balance through the busyness, and keep an even keel in relationships.

But going within can also provide opportunities to grow, and this is important, because harmony often requires growth on our part. And not just the kind of growth that helps you tolerate the belligerent uncle, the wheedling little sister, the infamous intrusive mother-in-law…

It takes some fortitude to enter the heart and encounter the resistance and emptiness we may find there. It takes a certain amount of discipline and honesty to show up for prayer, meditation, or any other spiritual practice authentically. Going within can be hard work.

If we then commit to taking it further, carrying our prayer and practice into our life, well… This also requires a great deal of dedication. And trust. And resilience.

What comes up for you, when you think about taking your hopes or desires, your practice, or your prayer out into the world? Do you feel inspired? Hopeful? Does it feel impossible? Overwhelming?

Sometimes when I pray or meditate, I encounter a fear. It’s an old fear—one that began in childhood and that every now and again will still catch me by surprise.

It doesn’t have a voice. This fear is inarticulate. But it can lodge itself into my being so firmly that sometimes it takes my breath away.

It is the unspoken fear that the world is bigger than Love. That it is so loud and so chaotic and so overwrought that Love will be lost in it. I don’t believe that, but that doesn’t mean that fear doesn’t sneak up on me, to test my belief.

Love is never small

In my meditation the other morning, a message came through that is disarmingly simple.

Love is never small.

I invite you to sit with this little sentence. It’s not so little, is it? Step into this sentence. Be with it. Feel it. Consider the following questions not so much from your mind, but from your heart.

What does it mean for Love to never be small? What kind of Love is never small? What does it mean for anything to be small? What would it mean for something to be great? What would Love do or reveal in your life, if you believed that it wasn’t small? What might it do in the world?

You may even want to meditate on or pray about this small sentence. Take it into your heart. Consider the implications for harmony, if Love is never small.

See beyond immediate perceptions.

If we go beyond our personal experience of this idea that Love is never small, we will encounter challenges.

The world we live in is troubled. Filled with conflict, turmoil, existing warfare that is overwhelmingly destructive and possibly looming warfare that could be even worse. Everywhere we read about division and polarization among people. We experience it in our own homes. At work. With friends.

I wonder: how complete is this view of reality? How true is this experience? Seen through the lens of conflict, humanity is cursed to continue to repeat its dark, divided, destructive past. But is there another way of seeing it?

What kind of seeing would we need, to believe in humanity’s inherent goodness? What kind of seeing would we need to find Love around and within us? How would God, or Love, or Spirit see humanity right now?

What choices might each of us need to make to develop that way of seeing things? How can we cultivate this way of seeing in our daily lives?

Find time to be still.

If we consider these questions, the value of finding time to be still extends beyond self-care and stress management, though both of those things are important. It is a path toward harmony within and harmony among us. It is a conscious decision to be more deliberate in our choice of what to see and believe.

That is a big ask in this season of running around buying gifts, sending off cards, preparing for gatherings, juggling work and family and visitors…

But I think it is a small ask, when considered in the larger scheme of things. Spending perhaps as little as fifteen minutes a day, exploring your own inner life and cultivating the view of others that you want to support—this is something that could make your life and the lives of everyone around you better.

Just fifteen minutes of quiet, to encounter the rough places and then to nurture what is whole, what is inspiring, both within you and in others.

This, along with managing stress and getting along with that mother-in-law, could bring about more harmony through the holidays. And maybe even ring in a truly New Year.

Wishing you and all of your loved ones peace, stillness, wonder, grace, and above all Love throughout the holiday season.

Grace