The Third Holy Night - The Gift of A Visit
Published: Tue, 12/27/11
The theme for the Eighth Year of Inner Christmas Messages is
The Twelve Gifts.
Human life runs its course in the metamorphosisbetween receiving and giving.Goethe
The Third Gift ~ A Visit
Even in the most intimate and constant relationship we only truly visit each other now and them. How long we stay is shockingly brief. Yet any visit at all is a true gift.
Do you want to be visited where you are in this moment?
I just spent the day with my cousin and my aunt. My aunt is 93 years old. She is in constant pain and very much alone. Her mind is so clear and alert. She is ready and eager to die. Her daughter, my cousin, can not visit her mother in her place of dying. My cousin prefers to remain in her own space that has no horizons where death is seen.
A dear friend is dealing with breast cancer. Her surgeon has made it clear that a mastectomy is the life-supporting choice. My friend feels lonely. All of her friend agree with the doctor and refuse to visit her in her place of the reality of losing an essential, beautiful part of her body.
Do you dwell in lonely places where no one visits?
Who visits you in those places of pain, difficult choices, shame, doubt? Or look at the opposite...who visits you in places of success?...who visits you in places of delight?
The visit is not small talk or impersonal, conceptual brilliance, or spiritual and meditative sweetness or profundity. The visit is here, now, where you are that's real in time and space and real feeling. It is also at the threshold where all that is familiar disappears.
Who visits you there?
If you have ever been visited, what did you feel? What potential manifested? What love burst forth? What was healed?
Now, are you willing to visit? Do you have the motivation to go the distance to meet the being you love? Sometimes it is a very long distance from the familiar comfort of your own space/reality through the dangerous brambles enclosing their sleeping existence. Can you make the journey?
Who do you want to give the gift of a visit?
Who do you want to invite to visit you?
As a contemplation of the Holy Nights and the mystery of Inner Christmas, you might also seek to make the discernment of a visit from the humble hearts of the shepherds or a visit from the wise heads of kings. Do kings or shepherds visit you? You don't need to work with this question this Christmas. Just know that it is a question that lives in every human heart and sooner or later, you know what it means to be visited by both.
I invite you share your experience of receiving and giving voice with the Inner Christmas Community.To leave a comment, click here.
The Inner Christmas messages are not the inner work of the Holy Nights. They are invitations or gateways into the Holy Nights.
Each message has a topic based on the theme of the
year. I offer a creative exploration of the topic, and a number of
questions to consider around the topic as a way to find your individual
relationship to the topic and a new, clarifying, liberating perspective
on yourself.
The messages are not definitive, they are encouraging.
Reading the messages is not the experience of the Holy Nights. The Holy Nights are a cosmic experience that can only be felt within your own soul. Be confident and know they are YOUR Holy Nights.
To personally contact Lynn: click here.