How do I celebrate Christmas anyway?

I was working from home today when a couple of young guys came to the door to witness to me about Jesus.  We tend to have a lot of missionaries visiting us.  One friend said it was because we really need saved.  That may be, but the flow of soul savers to our house is a bit out of control.  And forget taking walks, missionaries seem to be waiting in the bushes. 

So I answered the door and politely told them that I wasn't interested.  "And yes," I replied, "I have taken a look at the book of Mormon."  I really have, plus various other pieces of religious information left behind by their cohorts.  So I know that their way is not for me.

I suffer from the common ailment of not being able to say the right thing at the right time, so later the conversation kept playing over in the head. I kept trying to come up with something witty to keep for next time this exact same scenario plays out again (in a couple of days I'm sure.)

Faith, being what it is, something that you choose to believe in, must come from within.  It has to be a part of yourself, part of your being. How else could you believe in it? If you don't own this faith then it is not sincere, only an act that you are perpetuating. So where does the faith come from? Where do you, or how do you, get it to spring forth? I suppose you can accept the faith of others as your own. Typically from parents to child, or culture to individual. But accepting the faith of others has a lot of baggage with it. There's the history of the religion to be at peace with. There's the extremists that are doing unspeakable things in the name of that religion. Baggage. Plus, in the end, you really have to believe in it, maybe not all of it, but some part of it enough to call it your own.

You can buck the established religion track and set off on your own spiritual path. This is of course tricky to follow, because it is definitely not a path, no one has laid the groundwork for you.  You can end up floundering about without really getting anywhere. I suppose this is what has happened to me for most of my adult life.  I did join the Unitarian Universalist church for a bit, but I haven't attended for several years now. But their message is the closest I've found to agreeing with me.  Basically, there are many ways to celebrate the mystery of life.  You can pray to a god, you can pray to the universe, you can be a Buddhist. There is no right way, only your way.  This is something I can get with. Find out what makes the most sense to you and then live it.

So what does this have to do with Christmas? Every year I feel a bit weird for celebrating Christmas when I'm not really a Christian. I mean I think Jesus was a real person. And I dig him because he was pretty radical in his time, claiming that anyone can have a path to God, not just the established and righteous. He also said that the only way for a rich man to get to heaven is to give all his stuff away to the poor. (I'm paraphrasing quite a bit here I realize.)  But the powerful idea that he preached, that god wasn't just for the priesthood through elaborate rituals, but for anyone is pretty cool and very anti-establishment. He taught that we already have god inside of us. Right on! This is something I can believe in, but I would take it further and say that all things have god in them already, especially the life forms. Life is truly an amazing thing. Where else in the universe to you get a trend of more organization and more complexity as time passes? This post is really rambling, I'll try to find a point here somehow.

Back to Christmas. I do not really believe that Jesus was born this time of year.  I'm not alone in that as many Christians think the same way.  Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, doesn't really matter.  But in this dark part of the year it is really nice to have a tree inside, put some lights on it and maybe the house, get together with people instead of being holed up alone in your house, enjoying great food together, making and buying gifts to share with each other. There are so many great things about Christmas. Its blend of many traditions and cultures is nice, even if some folks might not realize it. You also get to add your own house rules to the occasion as well to make it your own. So instead of worrying about the strength of my faith this year, I am going to relax and enjoy the season.

Enjoy yourselves this holiday season!