Here is an example of what you will find in the Inner Christmas Messages. This is the message for Christmas Eve.( It was
written yesterday before I had my wonder-full brunch with my friend.)
What is Wondering?
How many times in your life have you said…
I feel wonderful!
How wonderful!
Have a wonderful day!
That was wonderful.
When I think about how I use the word “wonderful” I realize it is often said with naive enthusiasm and celebration. It is a “surface” word that has little consequence or depth of meaning. I love the word “wonderful” and will continue to use
it with love and delight, but it will always make me ask myself “Am I full of wonder?”
Am I full of wonder?
This is a sacred question that requires a very thoughtful response. Wonder, the noun, describes a feeling response or reaction to an object that brings surprise,
delight, abundant satisfaction and excitement. But wonder is also a verb of complex and creative activities. We will be looking with Holy Nights attention to the verb and 12 of its complex arts. (Rudolf Steiner suggested that it takes 12 distinct points of view to find the truth of anything.)
The Holy Nights are a time of great consequence and profound meaning. The wonder we will be attending to is a
verb of moral and spiritual significance and creativity. If we wonder morally and spiritually we will be blessed with four inner gifts or qualities: wisdom, love, joy and suffering. Let me explain.
Blessed
Have you ever wondered about this word,
“blessed”? Begin by looking up the dictionary definition, then search for quotes and finally, with active wonder, ask the beings that whisper inspirations in your heart.
Here is the result I found in my heart. To be blessed is to achieve right relationship. Right is not the idealized relationship but the relationship that offers new truth, beauty, goodness, freedom and
love.
Blessed means you do no harm…your willing life is one of goodness. Does wondering ever cause harm?
Blessed means your feelings arise out of equanimity…your feeing life is beautiful. Does wondering ever leave you unbalanced?
Blessed means your thoughts are illuminated with truth…your thinking
life reveals what is true. Does wondering ever avoid or hide the truth?
Blessed means you are free to seek all perspectives and evolve without limits. Does wondering ever confront limits?
Blessed means you love without selfish motive. Does wondering ever lack unfettered devotion?
Suffering
This is why suffering is included as a gift of wondering. Wondering does not to seek ways to avoid suffering. If we hold a picture of being blessed as a state of spiritual or material ease, comfort, happiness and well-being that is bestowed upon us, we will become morally and spiritually lazy. A right relationship to suffering sobers, strengthens and expands
our souls beyond our appearances and our stories. A right relationship to all things requires an eternal wondering and a constant evolving no matter how much inner and outer suffering faces us in the moment as we wonder and evolve.
Every one of us suffers. Our greatest lessons come from suffering. Wise suffering leaves room for joy. Wise joy leaves room for suffering. Is it ever about “just
desserts?” I wonder.
Wonder is the act of questioning without an agenda regarding the result of the wondering. When we wonder why we are resistant to the purposeful gift of suffering, we will find the love that forgives and makes meaning of our stories and our times. Just wonder.
Wisdom
"Wisdom is crystallized suffering." This is one of my favorite quotes from Rudolf Steiner. Wisdom cannot be measured so there is never enough or an end. You never will get the degree. You will never be ordained the wise one. But don’t let this stop you wondering as wondering crystallizes all things, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Wonder also dissolves all boundaries and endings.
“All wisdom begins in wonder.” So said Socrates. All life begins with birth. Wonder reveals wisdom that must be born again in a new wondering.
I could have said the theme for this year’s Inner Christmas Messages would be wisdom. But the Holy Nights begin
with Nativity and Wonder. They come to a close in Epiphany and Wisdom. So the theme that opens us to the gifts of the Holy Nights is wonder.
The Holy Nights have always been the most wondrous nights of the year. Wonder about this! Wonder what makes the Holy Nights wondrous. Wonder why suffering is a gift. Wonder why you are you!
Wonder lets us embrace contradictions, celebrate the ironic, and dance with the incomprehensible. Wonder takes us to the mysteries living behind, within, around, beneath, to all the relationships we can imagine. (I've attached a list of prepositions as guides to wondering. You can download it below.)
The
Purpose of the Theme of The 12 Acts of Wonder
We can think of the Holy Nights as a yearly class in being more fully human and more creatively individual. Who are our teachers during the Holy Nights? The Spiritual Hierarchies, the great Initiates, the elementals and the dead and unborn. We must be wondering to experience their teachings.
As we prepare for the Holy Nights, I have a suggestion for our first step in wondering. Try to go deep into your soul and imagine:
How do spiritual beings wonder at us…at you? Do you feel their wonder?
How do the elementals and nature spirits wonder at us…at you? Do you feel their
wonder?
How do the dead and unborn wonder at us…at you? Do you feel their wonder?
Between Christmas and Epiphany if we listen we can hear the harmonies of the angels and if we look we can see the guiding stars, but we must take action. Peace on Earth to souls of good will, good
action. We must willfully take up the twelve spiritual arts of wondering in our soul life. We will then know inner peace on Earth in these disturbing and distracting times.
Can we contribute to our future if our souls are not full of wonder? Please wonder at peace.
Just to be
clear:
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