Gifts of December

There is a special gift that we’re all given in December. Do you know what it is? Each year, without fail, December comes with its gift… But this gift is so secretive, it’s so sly, that it’s almost disguised as a nuisance. It’s the gift of Darkness and of Light.

No matter how many years you’ve lived in the same area, how many times have you caught yourself thinking, my goodness it gets dark early, it’s only 4:30 and it’s already dark? Year after year we’re boggled or tortured or rushed by the perpetual ebb and flow of nature. Chasing the Sun to get just a couple more things checked off the never-ending to-do list. This experience is entirely exhausting, in my opinion, and instead of continuing with it I decided one day to find the gift. I’m not sure where I picked up the game from but I play this game with myself, where I think about something bothering me, an event, circumstance, person, whatever it may be, and I try to find a gift in it.

The game is based on one fundamental premise, I make this radical assumption that or I should say a much wiser part of my being makes a radical assumption that if everything is God and everything is made of the Divine, then there must be a bit of goodness in all as well. I merely have to stretch my human mind enough to find it and so that becomes the game for me: tilting my perception, my perspective, seeking to throw away old ideas, trying to pull in new ideas, until I can find the aha! The gift. And then relief abounds as I am reminded, I live in a loving universe, I live in the grace of God.

First, when it gets dark early, and no more sunlight for the kids to play outside, we all cozy up together and watch movies. Second, when it gets dark early it feels like the day is done sooner and the busyness can be set aside. And finally, appreciation for the light. Isn’t it true with all things we love but maybe take for granted, we don’t realize how important they were and how much we miss them until they are gone?

Another aspect of the Gifts of the Darkness and Light are our shadows. The shadows lurking in the corners and crevices of our unconscious minds, a bit jaded being ignored unrealized unseen. I think that’s what this month symbolizes, being willing and brave enough to look at our shadows, look at those behavioral patterns and old ideas and old tapes going through our mind and transforming it into a gift for ourselves, a gift of light, of awareness, of being seen.

I know this year has been infinitely abnormal and my deepest wish for each of you is you too can recognize the gift within you, the gift that you are, the gift of all shadows we bring into the light. I’d like to complete this letter to you all with the gift of a poem to remind you but you are a blessing:

Happy Holidays

With Love,
Rev. Nicole