THE GIFT OF THE MOMENT

In the midst of moving, in the midst of an almost personal tragedy, in the midst of the usual, Patricia's post of today on pvedesign.blogspot.com arrived in my inbox. As always, Patricia's post reminded me to turn to my deeper side, to check out my heart and to be grateful.

Christmas can be the best or the worst of times: we bring so many expectations to the season, we make assumptions about what this season should mean. Assumptions about what we and others "should" be doing or planning or thinking.

What if we could just stop all of the musts and shoulds.

What if we made Christmas about giving ourselves a few moments every day to simply be. To be as fully present in the moment as possible. To treasure the moment, as we know it will never be repeated. To me, the greatest gift is to be with some one who can be present with me to share the moment of joy, of creativity, of love, of sadness without having to fix me or the moment.

What if we were able to give those we love and those we come in contact with just a few moments of our undivided and fully accepting attention, which equals love.

To suspended the internal chatter is not an easy task, but it is possible. This Christmas season I'm going to give myself the suspension of "me" so that I can be present in the moment with those that I love. Jesus came into the world to be the Light of the World, by being present, suspending judgments, plans, fears, etc., for even a few moments each day we bring the spirit of Jesus into our world. We bring light to even the darkest corner. Whenever I see Christmas lights, I will be reminded that my goal is to be a light in the true sense of the word, to suspend my internal chatter so that I can turn it to wonder.

Merry and Blessed Christmas Wishes

Mary & Jones (& Cole)