The Blessings of Christmas

Christmas

One of my favorite carols is I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day - the poem by Longfellow set to music.  In his poem, Longfellow captures the despair and the hope of a world at war - an individual in pain because of personal loss.  He wrote this poem in 1864 - the Civil War was raging - His son had been injured in battle - His wife had died in a fire.  The world around him was not peaceful!  And yet through all of this pain and despair, he found the Source of All Things - He heard the bells pealing peace - reconciliation - forgiveness.  For me, this is the spirit of Christmas! 

Several Christmases ago, I went to the Unity songbook to get the words and the page number for our Christmas service.  I was astonished to see that there were only three verses - the two verses that referre d to the despair and grief had been taken out.  Interestingly, this often happens in Unity.  Thinking that we are following the Law of Mind Action and removing the “negative” thoughts, we cut out the grief, the pain, the despair.  What we are left with appears to me to be a surface of smiles and goodness, a thin layer of ice that covers deep emotions and consequences of prior thoughts and actions. 

Now please don’t get me wrong - I do understand that when we hold “negative” thoughts in mind, we get more of the same.  And yet to refuse to look beneath the ice to the swirling water is denial - and not in the sense that Charles and Mytle meant when they used the term.  When there is war in our world - bombs and bullets that are killing people - devastating hunger and starvation in a bountiful world - death from treatable diseases - violence in our streets and our homes - when all of this exists, to not feel a moment of despair and pain is to not be human.  The power of the Law of Mind Action is that we can acknowledge the condition - the reality - without accepting it as permanent.  We can look deeper into the thought causes of these conditions - the thoughts of fear, lack, ego - and we can, by replacing those thoughts with ones of love, bounty, unity, change these conditions.   For as we change our prespective and thought, we will change our actions.  As we shift the energy of a situation from fear to love, from lack to abundance, for death to life, we - and all those we touch - are changed.

In this Christmas time, reach out to the infinite that is God - the Unity that includes the Duality - and as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did in 1864 - hear the bells peal loud and down - Peace on Earth - Good will to all!

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

And mild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along the unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head

“There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

                                                     

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound the carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

                                      

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn, the households born

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Till ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good will to men.