Sunday, December 21, 2008

Dear God,

What is Christmas? Is it family? Is it all about how many gifts can be accumulated? Is it a fun event? Is it party time? What is it really?

I went to see a "Christmas" movie. All during the movie I kept thinking about that question. What is Christmas? The movie itself was such a mockery of everything sacred. I've never seen a Christmas movie with more violence and slamming of persons. Even the scene of the living nativity at church became a way of slashing and ripping away the heart of what I have always believed Christmas was all about. The writers must surely have a distorted sense of the Christ event and therefore put every ounce of their disdain in the movie.

I walked away wondering if this is what Christmas is turning into. We want the gifts and the gaiety and family (or at least some of them) but we don't want the heart of it. We don't want to bother with the manger or the inhabitants of the stable. We just want whatever titillates us.

Have we lost our heart for Christmas? Have we lost our desire to rise up to higher levels of sacred living? Have we thrown out what has essentially been the best of ourselves in relationship to the Creator of the cosmos? Have we thrown away the child of the manger?

What is Christmas?

The question
circles in my head.
What is Christmas?
A holiday?
Is that all
it is?
Has it lost
its heart?
Tell me
it isn't so.

Love, Andrea