Going into It

"Truth answers every call we make to God, responding with miracles." -- A Course in Miracles

There is not one aspect of life to avoid or fear. Our conditioning is to look only for what feels good and to follow a very limited set of conditions for what what to do and when to do it. Our 'should' lists are long and exhausting. This time of year, regardless of what holiday you are celebrating, there are numerous opportunities to face your own predilection for doing things to please others and then projecting all your resentment and anger onto them. The holidays are a mine field. Or a treasure trove if you really and truly want freedom and peace and are willing to question what is really going on.

Going into it, we all have great intentions. "This is the season of love and miracles," we say out loud, while our hearts and minds are full of unnamed fear and anxiety. We'll go into the holidays like sacrificial lambs, but we will not, no we will not go into that unknown and unnamed fear. We will be happy and loving and non-judgmental no matter what, damn it. 'I'm a good person, and that's what good people do. And then people like me.' Maybe this haze of denial and pseudo-cheer comes from childhood punishment when we questioned or didn't act 'nice.' But the real truth is that it is all just a smokescreen.

A Course in Miracles says that the only goal of every twinge of discomfort, every conflict, fear, or problem is to preoccupy the mind so totally that what is Real and effortlessly present is not remembered. The reason for this insanity is that "Their [the ego, the personal identity] aim is to be able to retain their self-concept exactly as it is, but without the suffering that it now entails. Their whole equilibrium rests on the insane belief that this is possible. What they seek is magic.... a 'better' illusion."

If you're like me, when I read such words I tend to think of all the people I know that they apply to. The tendency is always to project it out there. So let me make one thing perfectly clear: these words are for me. And these words are for you. It's the human condition, and forgiveness is all about seeing that it is all in me, and all made up, without exception. I forgive my own insanity, my own projection. And as I forgive more and therefore project less, I notice I am also willing to stop serving as a projection in other people's dreams and dramas. I notice that I am willing to be real with myself first, and then with them. I notice that I am fearless in speaking whatever arises, and am not reacting or judging or trying to control. I notice that I am no longer willing to play the old roles and identities, and that this is very sweet. Some people come, some go, and it is all very sweet and full of peace and joy. Who would have thought that simply being my Self could be so easy and so precious?

So this holiday, this precious Christmas Eve, I find that the sweetness of Self is hidden like the brightest and most rare of gifts in the very fear and anxiety and dis-ease that plagues us. This is the One Gift that matters. And you can only open it by going into it.