In dormancy of winter we are like the seed have a time for deep thought and contemplation as we await a new awakening that comes in the spring of our life. We encapsulate all that we’ve learned and gained throughout our lifetime thus far. There is a sense of comfort staying safe within the bounders of our shell, but the spirit within longs to be free to experience more, and grow into the beautiful creation it was created to be.
In the process of new awakening we tend to forget where we’ve been and what we’ve learned thus far. Where we are heading becomes our focus and our senses go into high gear as we begin our journey toward new growth. We drink in the waters and feed off of the earth, and begin to feel an inner warmth that connects material life with the spiritual, pulling us instinctively upward. When we finally burst through the earth and the sun kisses our cheeks we know that which we were seeking was seeking us as well all along. It is in the spring of my new life I feel that warmth of love surround me, I in It, and It in me. Oh, if only I could remain in the warmth of light all the days of my life, but there’s much more life to see, lessons to learn, and growing to do along my journey as the spring of life begins anew…right here where I stand…right now.
You know this familiar song at Christmas time. It congers up all the wonderful comforting feelings that come with retuning “home” again. I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite things about going away on vacations is at the end when I walk through my front door. “Home!” ET pointed up toward the sky as he longed to find a way back to his planet. “I’ll be home for Christmas” those five words keep playing in my head, but with a different slant upon its meaning. It’s more of a coming back to that from which I’ve come in the spiritual sense.
Symbolically we all eventual leave home like the prodigal son wanting to explore and experience life for ourselves. There is a pull toward “something” unknown, and our need to find out what it is drives us. So we set out on our journey, getting lost along the way many times. Like the prodigal son ,we begin to wonder aimlessly until that longing for “something” leads us back to that from which we came, “home.” But like ET, our desperate need to find a way home looks impossibly. If we listen we can hear those five words playing in our head pointing the way that we long to go, “I’ll be home for Christmas. For it is in coming home for Christmas that we are reminded of why Jesus was born. He came to show us the way back home to where we belong. We all must come to that point when we long to come home once again for Christmas. Upon our return ,we realize what we’d been searching for all along was right here where we left it. What we realize at the time of our return is how necessary the journey away was. For it is only in the leaving that we learn what we had all along, and it is in the retuning that the meaning of “coming home for Christmas” is truly understood.
To find the joy in our journey can be like looking at a picture puzzle where you try to find the objects that are hidden within. We have to look beyond the past. Beyond that which clouds our view and sense of direction. Beyond what we think our future holds. Our journey begins right where we are standing, and the light allows us to see all the hidden joy within.
This quote in my daily reading made me laugh out loud. Now I’m the kind of person who is always trying to look beneath the irritating things that people do. I always look for something good in others, giving them the benefit of the doubt. But “dog-gone-it!” It’s not easy! What have we really learned but that we don’t want to be like them, and we’re left with the irritating residue they leave behind.
Now what if we thought of it this way? If earth is our school, and life is our lesson, maybe the people we encounter along our life’s journey are actually angels on assignment sent to assist us toward our best selves yet to be. See now, that’s more like my way of thinking. So the irritating people would actually be angels in disguise sent to teach me what I need to know. Wow, if I knew they were specially sent from God to teach me what I need to know, that would shed a whole other light on how I saw them. Of course being human, I would shiver upon their departure, that’s for sure. Partly because I’d know how special they were, but also to shake off all the unwanted irritating residue they left behind. A letting go, you could say. That’s when the clarity of the lesson would set in. Now with all that junk out of the way how could I not see the wisdom of the lesson, and feel the gratitude it would create in me. I’d be that much closer to the best yet to come.
I’m thinking about the Wizard of Oz again. How the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion and Dorothy all wanted something they thought they didn’t have. I remember feeling that way as a kid. As if when I was being created by God. He forgot to give me something that everyone else seemed to have. I’d picture myself of the conveyer belt in the factory of heaven. The only way that I could have slipped past God was because someone else who had a very important prayer request that needed answered. As He turned away in that moment, I rolled out of the chute with all the other souls. How would He ever recognize me when He never laid eyes on me?
I came to understand later that God doesn’t make mistakes. How can He? He’s perfect, all-knowing, and all encompassing, right? I believe that! At the end of the Wizard of Oz all four character’s realized as I did that everything we need has been right inside us all along. Their lack of knowing, as mine, was part of our journey because sometimes to truly understand what it means to have; we have to know what it feels like to think we don’t have it.