A Year of Living Kindly
Published: Wed, 12/09/15
Dear Friends,
I want this year’s Inner Christmas Messages to reach a huge number of people.
Why? Because this year’s theme is 12 Acts of Kindness.
Our world events over the last years and the last weeks focus on acts of violence, acts of greed, acts of domination, acts of hatred, acts of betrayal and acts of terrorism. And our entertainment industry provides us with more of the same.
If, over the 12 Holy Nights, there are a number of people deepening their understanding to acts of kindness could it be healing, strengthening, even transformative for all of us?
I decided on the theme in early October. I had several themes in mind, but kindness kept resonating. I realized that I didn’t know much about the deep meaning of kindness and that the challenge of writing about kindness from twelve original points of view would be very meaningful for me and for those who read and work with the messages.
Then came the events in Paris and in San Bernardino. I looked back over 2015 using a lens very conscious of kindness and I saw its absence in so much. Yes, Facebook is full of videos of people being kind but the videos draw on sentimentality as a response and do not raise our consciousness nor direct our will. We need to go beyond sentimental stories about kindness to powerful imaginations of the everlasting devotion living in kindness. We don’t need admonitions to be kind, but creative commitment to the possibilities for living kindly.
The Holy Nights empower, evolve and enthuse our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions for the coming year. Together lets make 2016, a year of living kindly.
Please Share Inner Christmas
Please invite all your friends to celebrate Inner Christmas this year. Forward this email to your email contacts. Share it through social media. I have attached a small poster, please print it out and post it on every bulletin board you know of…shops, schools, churches, etc. If your community doesn’t speak English, please make a poster in your language(and send me a copy).
Thank you for sharing the celebration of Inner Christmas and joining me for the Holy Nights and the 12th year of Inner Christmas Messages. Let’s all imagine kindness.
With warmth of heart,
Lynn
PS: You may be interested in my blog on empathy in response to the massacre of children at Sandy Hook.
If you were forwarded this email and want to receive the Inner Christmas Messages and The Guide to Inner Christmas
click here.
Inner Advent occurs over the four weeks (a lunar month) before the Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere) and Christmas Day. You can engage with the Inner Advent any time before Christmas.
Inner Advent is simply a guide, a compassionate and creative structure for shaping the work of integrating your soul’s year. There are four audios and lots of handouts to support a truly elegant design for celebrating your inner year. Inner Advent reflects the traditional Christian Advent of the four Sundays before Christmas. The difference is in the focus of attention. Christian tradition focuses on the four moods of Christmas: hope, joy, peace, love.
Inner Advent focuses on your soul’s activities of thinking, feeling and willing over the previous year and guides you to...
Recollect your memories of how you lived the year and expressed yourself.
Review and discover your the meaning of your thoughts, feelings & deeds.
Release your memories in to the world ethers and create within your soul a new openness for wonder, warmth & wisdom.
If you choose to work with the artistic suggestions of Inner Advent, you will develop a mandala filled with images of your soul over the four seasons. You will see your year in language, form, color or whatever you choose. Or your Inner Advent activity may be journaling, active thinking, or conversations with a friend or therapist.
The true gift of the Inner Advent program is the beauty and usefulness of the design, structure, and process. You learn how to create a spiritual practice that brings depth and rightness to your inner work. You will find the union between your soul and the cycle of the year in nature. You will discover the spiritual meaning flowing through your inner development in each season.
If you feel you don’t remember your year, that you couldn’t recollect it, the guidance of Inner Advent will awaken memories, but will also create a foundation for your relationship to 2016. Inner Advent serves the past year and the future year equally.
Inner Advent offers a creative and illuminating spiritual practice. You will feel a new freedom and a deeper compassion filling your heart and mind as you arrive at the Holy Nights.
Learn more about Inner Advent and register here.
The Six Celebrations Book
free shipping ends on Friday, December 11Midnight Eastern
This small book offers thought-provoking, heart-expanding explorations of the six celebrations of Christmas: Nature, Nativity, Riches, Relationships, Childhood and Selfhood. The insights and questions will inspire not only a reimagination
of your Christmas but bring you to a new perspective on every day of your year. Learn about the Six Celebrations here. If you want to spend a few hours opening up to the complexity and grace of your Christmas experiences, I invite you to order Six Ways to Celebrate Christmas & Celebrate You. In this little book you’ll find many ways we can bring joy and meaning to Christmas and everyday of the year. Learn more here. I’m offering free shipping from now until December 11.
Dear Lynn,
Your posts awaken senses and memories long lost, and it is such a comfort to find them again, especially at this time of year.
I have been working with your Holy Nights posts for the past 5 or 6 years (?) and I so love them!
This year especially they provided some much needed healing to myself.Your work is so wonderful and I look forward to it every year. I also did your Inner Mother and Inner Father workshop a couple years ago and for the first time worked with your Inner Advent material. I can not describe the healing it has brought me.
Thank you for all the gifts you give us! Maggie