The Second Holy Night:

At Home with Values

Tonight we dwell in the home of all we value and how we care for what we value. This home has many chambers.

The chamber of spiritual values. 

The chamber of material values.  

The chamber of moral values. 

The chamber of shared values.  

The chamber of personal values. 

The chamber of hidden values.

I ask a simple question. In each chamber, what are the values you find there?  You might want to do a drawing perhaps using the image of the nautilus shell with its spiral of chambers, and write a few values in each chamber.  Remember your spiritual companion will help you focus on and reveal the values that need your consciousness, even determine if this home needs your attention right now.  

Some perspectives on making yourself at home with your values...

What are the values you were blessed or born with and what are the values you uncover as you live your life from day to day, year to year?

How do you care for each value? How do you dust them off, shine them up, mature them?  Have you lost any values? Values are determined by our feelings anticipating loss.  If we don't care about losing something, we don't value it.

Is there any chamber you spend more time in, neglecting the others?  Your material values deserve just as much consciousness as your spiritual values.  My values in both these chambers changed radically many years ago when I read Rudolf Steiner's admonition that we must spiritualize matter and materialize spirit. If I don't balance my spiritual and material values, I will never fulfill this essential task of my soul.  Only through a conscious at homeness in both chambers, can I enter the chamber of my moral values, those that bring to life the integration of spirit and matter in my practical life.

The same is true for shared or cultural values and personal values. When these values are integrated our hidden values will become visible and available for our creative attention.

As I write this message, I feel astonishment at how rarely I bring my consciousness into this home of values.  (Maybe the theme for next year's messages will be The Twelve Values!) Perhaps an understanding of the different chambers awakened during the Holy Nights will only bear fruit later in the year.

Let me make this a little bit more real by sharing a personal value dilemma I have...

Just the other night I was asking myself why I can think of the value (although I did not realize it was about valuing at the time) of diet and exercise, but not value either enough to bring it into my will and actually decrease my food intake and increase my yoga, swimming and walking.  My excuse...I so value the tastes of great food and so value my sedentary time of thinking and writing.  What are your dilemma and your excuses?

Maybe you experience this value dilemma around meditation, managing your finances, writing thankyou notes, or having downtime and reading that novel.  Like me, perhaps you need to be more at home with your values.

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This meditation on values has encouraged the following request. 

The Value of the Inner Christmas Messages

Please acknowledge the value you find in the Inner Christmas messages. What does my devotion to your experience of the Holy Nights mean to you? 

Please consider a contribution of $1 per Inner Christmas Message this year: as always, there will be 14 messages ($14 via paypal or check).  Yes, you can donate more or less.

This is a request, not a requirement. The messages will be sent with love to you regardless. 

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