Christmas Morning

I confess that the Friend is born in my heart this morning, his gentle Name fills creation, and I cannot explain it at all. I used to feel uncomfortable confessing his Name. So I said "Christ Consciousness," escaping from the personal into the safety of "non-duality" and universalism. I might have said, "Cosmic Consciousness," yet my heart felt an ancient yearning to speak his Name. So I said Christ Consciousness. Why did that feel truer? My intellect could not explain the soft yet overwhelming power of his Presence, the power to heal and transform the human heart. My pride could not acknowledge that the mystery of Jesus is incomprehensible to my mind. I lacked the innocence and simplicity to encounter him just as he is, a unique living person. So I tried to turn him into a symbol of social justice, an archetype of enlightenment, a pre-Christian nature God in disguise, dying in Winter, resurrecting in Spring, just another form of Tammuz, Osirus, Dionysus. But his grace finally burned through the veil of mind. His friendship kindled a fire in my chest. And the faint breath of his Name became a diamond worth more than all the words of all the books in the history of philosophy. He doesn't have to "mean" something other than himself. He doesn't "symbolize" anything but who he Is. He is merely... Jesus. And that is enough. Overflowing grace. 

Painting: by Rembrandt