Love is messy ....

The dictionary defines 'mess' as an untidy state.  Thank you dictionary for succinctly describing my workroom where boxes and rolls of wrapping paper as well as wrapped and unwrapped gifts are scattered over every flat surface.  Messy would also be an accurate description these days of my schedule full of tasks, my kitchen where cookies and treats are being created and to an extent my finances as holiday preparations have burgeoned - I love that word as it evokes an image of something rapidly growing; expanding so quickly that all that was around it is moved into a new position.  And all this messy living is because of love.  Whether you celebrate Christmas as a religious feast or a cultural event, at the core of this season is a simple message: celebrate love.


Christmas love is not at all tidy.  Christmas love is not romantic infatuation.  Christmas love is so big at the core that to experience what this is all about, the story tells us to stop ... now how exactly am I supposed to 'stop' when I just described a life burgeoning with preparations! ... but that is what the story tells us: stop.  Stand still ... or better yet, sit still ... and hear the angels singing ... for love; love was born ...


That is the message I heard - yes, angels still whisper to us today - last night as I wrapped and sorted and wrapped some more - there is so much to do because I have been given so much love in my life.  Christmas is the season where all my to-do lists have one very important message:  I have been inordinately blessed with love: love that is not a feeling but a wondrous web of people and experiences that keeps growing and expanding.

My Christmas will be a different experience this year because love has expanded. my web of life. My eldest son will not be with us for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning as he will be out of town with his girlfriend spending the days with her family.  His experience of love has expanded his life as well as mine.  The love that came into his life with Andrea also brought Andrea into mine - what a glorious gift she is.  And their love has added more people to my life for caring about and enjoying. When I met her mother I felt as though life was introducing me to a sister I had not yet met!  What a gift.

The 'burgeoning' quality of love that expands our life and pushes what we are accustomed to into a new place so life might be experienced with 'newness' is very, very real to me this year.  This awareness of the wonder of Love's capacity to expand life - to create mess in the tidiness of our known routine - is where I find the 'stillness' I need in order to accomplish the tasks of this season.

I learned a long time ago that gratitude is a short cut to wonder.  When I am able to deliberately breathe 'thank you' in and out while engaging my tasks, then I experience the 'still point' of life: that all of this 'upside down' experience of living is because of love.  My workroom, my kitchen, my schedule and my finances are all a bit messy because love has grown and multiplied into an exquisite web of people and their Being is a gift to my life. And when I am able to stay with my thank yous I become aware that this web of love is pure gift to me.  All I have needed to do in order to enjoy all this messy blessing is be open to receiving and then be willing to engage what I have been given..

And so I do engage: I ponder over the gifts; I select and purchase; I sort and wrap; I choose ingredients and bake and then plan the menus go to the grocery and then cook.  All these 'tasks' are a concrete means for engaging the wondrous gift of love given to me.  Given.  That is the true message of Christmas: we are given love.  We do nothing to earn this love - our only part is to respond to what is bestowed upon us: to receive  and engage what weare given.   

The boxes and rolls of wrapping paper, the bits of tape and the ribbons and bows and the various gifts for people really have only one message: I have been gifted with an experience of love that is so real it is able to make 'a mess' of the tidiness of my life.