Black Friday and Cyber Monday marked the onset of the holiday
madness: spending orgies, crowded stores, mounting debt, running, going, doing.
Tis the season to go broke as commercialism reaches its peak. Consequently, tis
the season to be depressed for all too many.
I spent most of my adult life trying to find a way to escape the
madness. There came a day when I recognized that we were running in circles and
going nowhere. That the merry-go-round
was not what it seemed: an innocent ride for children. That the seasonal hoopla
was only a distraction from holy reality, a saboteur of REAL joy and peace. A
kick in the face of Christ.
Once I saw through the farce and realized that the glitter wasn’t
gold, that we were all under the spell of darkness masquerading as light, my
innermost being cried, stop this insanity
and let me off. For years I suffered
in silence. Felt like a lone wolf howling at the moon, lamenting the rape of
the sacred.
Then one day I realized that the merry-go-round was never going to stop and let me off. The world
keeps turning and going in the same direction year after year. I’m the one that
needed to muster the courage to leap off and dash toward freedom.
“Courage: the most important of all
the virtues
because without courage you can’t
practice
any other virtue consistently.”
~ Maya Angelou
It is a leap of faith to break free from cultural mores that
contradict your own spiritual values. Disentangling from entrenched customs
takes divine fortitude and a willingness to stand alone. Yet most are so
encultured they don’t recognize the matrix entrapment and will continue the
vicious cycle of spending and debt for generations to come. When “have you
finished your shopping” becomes society’s mantra as Christmas draws near, you
know who runs the show.
Only a brave heart can face the family and say, “Christmas is not
about stuff. Forget the Santa list. We’re not going there this year. You have
enough stuff already. I have enough stuff. Waste not, want not. It’s not about
presents, it’s about Presence. Immanuel. Let’s keep it simple. Keep it Real.”
Yet most will continue on the merry-go-round,
spinning and spending and conjugating the three verbs spoken of by Evelyn
Underhill:
“We mostly spend our lives conjugating
three verbs: to Want, to Have and to Do. Craving, clutching, and fussing... we
are kept in perpetual unrest, forgetting that none of these verbs have any
ultimate significance except so far as they are transcended by and included in
the fundamental verb to Be, and that Being, not wanting, having and doing, is
the essence of the spiritual life.”
To Want, to Have, and to Do: the way of the world. Simply to Be is all but impossible for the
masses caught up in the hype and hoopla. But those who’ve summoned the courage
to move in the opposite direction have been delivered from perpetual unrest and
have discovered the secret of true inner peace and joy. They’ve learned to be and to be still in the midst of the stampede. They’ve learned to focus
on the essential, to breathe deep and find rest for their weary souls.
How
stressful are the holidays for you?
Or have
you already leapt off the merry-go-round too?
