The Fear of Love (and Merry Christmas!)

The angel said, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy...” -- Luke 2:10

Only the creations of Light are real. -- A Course in Miracles

While listening to a friend recently, I realized what a mockery this world makes of Love. The supposedly intimate relationships fed by obviously false stories of fantasy and romance, the use of bodies and personalities and the identities around them, the guilt and its resulting eagerness for approval, the fear of being alone if they don't approve of what you do, the need for a body and a personality that 'fit' with your own chosen identity so you can use them to bolster that identity... but most of all, the fear of real Love that this ghastly parody engenders and then masks. The only use of love in this world is to mask our real intentions, which is to get what we want... and we think that if we act loving according to the world, then it will give us what we want. Has this ever, ever worked?

Jeshua ben Joseph, whose birth we celebrate today, was the antithesis of what we call loving. Not one human relationship held him in patterns of need/obligate. When his mother and brothers came to see him, he said, "I have no mother or brothers. My family are those who do the Will of God." Not one social norm did he honor. He didn't even let people call him 'good.' "Why do you call my good?" he said. "There is no one good, but God." In other words, he knew that every single human notion of good, and of love, is false, and always, always masks the ego agendas of the personalities involved.

Into this hopeless quagmire of human self-deception come the Angels, the Thoughts of God: "Fear not! I bring you good news of great Joy! Only the Light and its reflections mirror reality in this world... so in the humblest of places, in your very own heart, find this newborn Light. Fear not! Only this Light and Love is real! Be true only to this, and fear no evil."

The mystery of this incarnation of Love that is Christmas is the Light that appears as us, when we are willing to see and honor it above all else with the gift of our attention, to honor it over our fantasies and identities. This Light is real Love that longs to shine through us and as us. As we commit and honor It, this Light allows us to let go of the stories and fantasies and listen to the Voice that speaks from the Silence, the Voice of the Light. The Voice calls us Home, through the world. Through the dream of fear, Love is welcomed and embraced without fear, and shines as ItSelf. And the Light has come.