IT'S CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY

Some things that happen as you age

Get ready -- It's gonna get deep over here.

Yesterday my favorite sister made the mistake of "Skyping" me.  You all know what we talked about.  There are no secrets here.  We talked about what empty nesters talk about when they are alone.  Is there anything else?  But during and after the interlocutory, which was lighthearted and enjoyable, by the way, I took up a reflective meditation that has been hanging around my head and my heart for sometime.  

[Before going on, I promise I will say  something about the picture]

Several years ago I slipped past the outer limits of the life span of nearly the entire generation of maternal and paternal first degree relatives through whom I came into the world and by whom I was trained to live in it.  As I go forth into the future day by day I go deeper and deeper into the realm of the unknown.  Every moment of every day I get further and further away from my forebears and closer and closer to reaching them again in the spirit world.  I awake every day with but one instant thought:  “Ok, God, here I am, just tell me what you want me to do today.  Tell me why I am awake."

Contrary to the common opinion, I say "It is a blessing to get old."  Age gives us the opportunity to let God take us by the hand and lead us down the byways of mysterious uncharted territory.  It makes me think that the people who wrote the Scripture reflections about not caring about what you wear or what other people may think of you either were very mature for their age, or they were really older than average.  Like maybe 300 or 400?  

Jesus of course was in a class all by Himself.  “You can’t serve two masters” says He.  He mentions God and Mammon.  We think of Mammon as money, goods, riches.  That’s what we hear from the pulpit every year when that teaching appears.  I don’t look at it that way any more.  For me, Mammon is I; Mammon is what I want; Mammon is my good reputation according to what others think of me; Mammon is doing what I want when I want and how I want; Mammon is making sure that I am comfortable; Mammon is really “I-AM-ON” and I don’t ever want to be OFF.  When I serve myself; when I seek the praise and pleasing judgment of others; when I do for others in order to polish my own apple, I am serving Mammon and I am not serving God.

This teaching is THE challenge.  The challenge to live life in, with and for God and thereby find the real ME and everything that goes with it in the bosom of Father God.

So now, many days when I wake up and I see that it is the house ceiling that I am seeing and not the face of God, I thank Him and along with "Tell me what You want today," I've gotten to the point of many times adding, "..and teach me something new today while you're at it."  You know, just to be fair to Him, a lot of times He does just that.  Maybe He does it just to humor me.  Maybe just to keep me interested enough to want to hang around a while longer.  I don't knock it.  

Take, for example, the Christmas Tree in Bethlehem.  Yeah, Bethlehem.  You know, the City in the West Bank, the one with the refugee camps, the thirty foot "security wall" all around it, Jewish squatters in "settlements" sitting all along the "security wall" and the only woman mayor in the whole Arab World.  That Bethlehem. The place where David, Joseph and Jesus were born and that same Bethlehem where the picture of the Christmas Tree can be taken every single year.  That Bethlehem on the southern border of Jerusalem, the de facto capital of Israel no matter what the rest of the world thinks about Tel Aviv.  

I did not know that I, or anyone else for that matter, would ever see a Christmas Tree in modern day Bethlehem, never mind read or write about it.  But there I was, one day about three weeks ago in the major square of Bethlehem where people were gathering to celebrate the lighting of the majestic Manger Square Christmas Tree.  Sadly, I had 79 other people to take care of and we had other commitments, but I have to say, that the only place I really wanted to be was in Manger Square that evening.

See, every now and then God does get His way.  Here and there, now and again He gets His licks in against the Dragon.  He and Ol'

Saint Michael wind up standing over the whimpering Dragon.  Even in Bethlehem where only about 1% of the population is Christian.  Now, I don't know about you, but I'll take that Christmas tree over Santa Claus any old day.

Let me end by saying that if I had not lived this long I would never have known any of this stuff.  It's a lot of fun growing old, if you can get away with it.