Christmas Points Us Beyond the Birth of Jesus

As so many of us come down from the Christmas high this week, and no doubt look around to realize there is cleaning and grocery shopping to be done, there is a question festering within me of how we might carry the energy of Christmas with us forward into the new year.

When we celebrate Christmas as only the birthday of Jesus, it can become tempting to treat the next day as any other day. Just like aunts and uncles, we might be perfectly happy to leave the newborn when the bowel movements begin, the cries reverberate through the house, and sleep becomes a thing of the past.

But when we celebrate Christmas as a ritual pointing to the truth of universal incarnation, the Divine’s existence within every thing, it opens the entire holiday wide open. Christmas isn’t just about one baby’s birth in Palestine two thousand years ago; it is a finger pointing to the moon, urging us to continually recognize the presence of the Divine all around us.

The Symbol of Christmas

Howard Thurman, one of the most influential Christian mystics in my life, speaks of the power behind this universal incarnation when he writes:

“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.” (The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations, 1973)

I love this image of the “brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit,” constantly operating in us and around us to bring the world closer to wholeness and justice. For me, that’s a more realistic symbol of Christmas than a baby born 2000 years ago.

While I can find metaphorical truth in that traditional Christmas story, it’s a story that simply gets lost in my head; it’s not something I can feel moving within me.

But it we don’t stop there, if we move beyond the baby and into what it really means for the Divine to be present within our Universe in an intimately personal way – James Finley refers to this as the “immediate intimacy of Love” – we might have not just a radical story, but an embodied story that each of us are already in the midst of: a story inviting us into recognizing and honoring the Divine energy already moving through us.

How might we carry this symbol of Christmas – this energy of Christmas – with us into the new year?

There are two practices I’m committing to as we move past this season of Christmas, with the hope that my posture might remain open to the message of this seasonal ritual. I invite you to think of your own one or two practices you might commit yourself to in order to carry the energy of this season forward in your life. (Or borrow mine!)

1. Daily Spiritual Reading: I admit, during COVID, I have had a hard time reading. (Although, strangely, I’ve had no problem purchasing new books…) My attention carries me off quickly as my eyes float unfocused across page after page. Eventually, I have found myself giving up on it altogether.

But now feels as good a time as any to recommit, with some realistic intention, to this practice. Rather than expect myself to somehow return to reading full chapters when I sit down, I’m going to focus on books with small meditations in them, trusting that a little bit of reading might go a long way. At least for the next few weeks, I’ll be sitting with Held: Blessings for the Depths each morning, letting the words and poetry of amazing artists feed me.

2. Body Practices: As someone who often forgets to honor my body (hello chips, goodbye exercise), I’m also committing to a daily practice of affirming my physicality. Whereas some of you might do yoga or go for jogs through the neighborhood, I’m going to start out with a simple, at-home body practice I learned a few years ago called the Right-Sizing Practice. It is a short, but extendable, form of body meditation that has really helped me in the past to slow down and recognize what my body needs from me to be fully healthy.

If you’re making any commitments this season for how you’ll keep noticing the universal incarnation, let me know! If you need an accountability buddy, I’m happy to be one.