After Christmas

The house is quiet and I am feeling the need to put the holiday away and create a bit of starkness in the house. I suspect the weather greatly influences my mood. The bare trees, the shades of gray, contrasted by a red cardinal, bright berries on a bush, a sturdy rose that refuses to admit the season. This is a time for me to sit in reflection, ponder the great mysteries of life while looking out the window, gray clouds hanging low in the late December sky. Ice on fence posts and wood smoke circling and dancing in the winter winds. It is a time of the year I love, its moody, artistic in nature.

I am reading once again the book by the Dalai Lama titled, "Becoming Enlightened". It makes you think deeply about your own spiritual walk. In the 4th chapter there is a paragraph that I cannot get out of my mind...."In Tibetan the word for "religion" is cho, which means to adjust, to improve, to change for the better. The basic idea is to transform that which produces pain, to overcome our unruly attitudes.." Apply that concept to Christianity and you would have a major revival. Far less judging others and far more deeply and profoundly content people. Imagine if we honestly believed that God gave us the Bible as a gift to help us live a life with less pain and suffering here and now. We would live in far less fear, far less worry over meeting some standard. We would understand that Jesus spoke each and every word to help us live in greater harmony and overcome the thoughts and actions that cause us pain. We would see the love in the words, not have to sit through sermons of hell fire and brimstone, or jump up and down in some frenzied state. We would, with a deep and abiding peace work with joy to overcome our angry thoughts, our grudges towards others, our nasty attitudes about waiting 2o minutes in line. Our resentments would melt away when we realized they do not serve us in any way. If I thought about the words of God in such a way, as guides to transform the very things that eat at me and the relationships in my life, I would begin to live in such a way that the present, the very moment I am in would be the most important thing. Redemption would be at hand as Jesus said. We would judge one another so much less since we would be working on our own unruly attitudes. We would live happier lives and those around us would be happier too.

Much to think about.