The Quiet Power of Christmas Eve

Reflecting on love as the greatest power of all.

Awaking on Christmas eve, I feel the anticipation shared by millions of people, the internal melody that infuses the air, the silent carols announcing the advent of Christmas.

I’ve been thinking about the days of Ramadan, the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the days between Christmas and New Years. The same phenomenon is involved in all of them: time spent integrating what it means to live our lives from a deeper place.

And living our lives from a deeper place is the only hope for humanity now.

A life disconnected from the heart has led us to where we are today, as individuals and as a species. There is no way out of the mess we’re in through external means alone. In order to transform the world, we’re going to have to transform ourselves.

Like everyone I know, I think of the year ahead with a mix of hope for the best and wariness about its prospects. Will it be a radical turning in the direction of compassion, or more of bad news from weather catastrophes to Covid variants to political insanity?

We do have a choice. If we live as we have lived in the past, then the future will simply be more of the same. But if we choose to live differently, opening our hearts to a level of forgiveness and commitment to love unlike anything we have experienced before, then a miracle will occur and the world will change.

That is the meaning of Christmas.

Tina Terras and Michael Walter

Jesus was born many centuries before words like “psychology” filled our lexicon. Yet when he said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” that is exactly what he meant. There is an inner life, or an inner kingdom, just as there is an outer life, or outer kingdom. And the salvation of the world - our deliverance from the insanity and violence that so plagues us now - lies in tending to the inner kingdom too often neglected in our modern age.

There is one Truth. It is spoken in many different ways, through numerous religious, spiritual and even secular teachings. But all of them point to one main theme: the opening of the heart as the bridge from where we are, to where we all most long to be.

The mind is the womb of a better tomorrow, the incubator for new beginnings and the channel for our spiritual rebirth. Our hearts open, we give birth to the best within us and new possibilities for all of us. Our hearts closed, we repel the miracles that would otherwise repair the world.

Each of us has within us the capacity for everything. We can be kind, and we can be unkind. We can be generous, and we can be defensive. We can be loving, and we can be angry. What we cannot be is lacking in power. Whatever we choose to think, whatever we choose to be, is what will determine the world we see.

Today, at this most holy hour, let us reconsider our options. The world is now in a critical place, teetering on the edge of catastrophe should we not evolve to a more conscious state. And we can’t expect others to do the work for us. Nothing is going to save us now except the Light that is within - the infinite power of infinite love, and the miracles that emerge from it.

Subtle changes within ourselves will create momentous changes in the world next year, if we commit to making them. May this be the day when we consider the possibility that there might be another way for us to think, and thus to be.

There is deep and mystical meaning in these words:

“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
Oh night divine.
The night when Christ was born.”

The birth of Christ does not refer simply to the birth of one man two thousand years ago. It refers as well to the regeneration of our souls, the entrance of more love into the world in any moment when we choose that it be so.

May your day and night be holy on this Christmas Eve as we prepare for something wondrous now. May all of us be born anew this day, and miracles light our world.

Amen.

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For those of you interested in studying A Course in Miracles next year, I’ve recording the Workbook lessons in a program called Mornings with Marianne. The Course is a psychological mind training in relinquishing a thought system based on fear and accepting instead a thought system based on love. You might want to check it out and see if it’s for you…