Christmas in Pandemic With All of the Bros From Home

Yo Yo Ho Ho, God Rest Ye Merry GentleBros!

It’s Kelly Russell, the Rock Your Joy Coach, and today I bring you tidings of great joy! 

I’m channeling my Three Wise Chicks and following that crazy-bright Star of Wonder – aka the guidance of Spirit – to lay some precious bling on that Christ child you’ve got all swaddled up in the embrace of your heart.

It’s Christmas in Pandemic, Peeps, without all of the folks from home. To me, that means it’s also the MOST wonderful time of the year to look with different eyes at some favorite holiday symbols in order to see the deeper meaning within them. Otherwise, we run the risk of Scrooging ourselves into massive humbuggery over this Covid-era Christmas – seeing our stockings half-full of the ego’s dark scarcity and lack instead of spilling over with the abundant gifts this unusual time is offering us.

The ego Grinch is not stealing our Christmas. So mask up, and all-aboard the Polar Express to remembering the Truth.

Christmas in Pandemic With All of the Bros From Home

The Star

The first symbol is That Star of Wonder, appearing impossibly bright in the night sky, lighting the journey for Wise Ones and shepherds alike and signaling the birth of Jesus. It represents the Guide within our minds, the constant, showing us the way, illuminating the path. But, like our bros 2000 years ago, we have to look up in order to follow yonder star. Like those navigating by celestial compass, if we’re looking down at terra firma and expecting the world to tell us how to get anywhere worth going, were gonna be f*cking lost, Peeps. Just saying. 

Angels

Those herald angels we have heard on high are rapping out peace on Earth, goodwill to men, and Gloria in excelsis Deo – which means, “Glory to God in the highest.” In this time of pandemic, racial conflict, political polarization, and whatever else appears to be happening in our world, let these be the angels of our truer natures. Allow them to represent the Voice of love and compassion in our hearts. Let us hear them speaking to us and through us, urging us to release our brothers for whatever grievance we are holding against them – thus releasing ourselves. In doing so, we bring glory to the God that is within us, holding the Truth of our holiness – our Oneness – in the highest.

Mary

There’s something about Mary… right? I mean, come on. As far as the whole journey-of-bringing-something-cool-into-the-world goes, she kind of crushed it. Can we all get our Inner Mary on and look within at what gifts we are carrying in this pandemic, and what wants to be born through us? 

What are we being prepared to do, and to be? 

For many of us, this experience has caused significant life alteration. The way in which we live, work, are educated, play, manage our lives, shop, eat, get along with people, and what we prioritize is completely different (like when you don’t have toilet paper, that newspaper takes on a whole different meaning and it kind of doesn’t matter what was originally on it.) 

Can we hark up to what those angels are singing about what is ours to bring forth? 

Whatever it looks like for us, there is quickening happening within us. A necessary letting go of thinking we know how it was all supposed to be and allowing what is.

What will be created through us? What has this gestation period of greater time, moving more slowly and with less distraction caused us to grow within ourselves?

We are being called to a higher order in the dream. 

If we are willing, we can tune ourselves to hear the whispering of Spirit, trusting that the Light we are carrying is intended specifically for us, for the purpose of blessing the world.

The Tree

Instead of lamenting what a pain in the ass everything is due to Covid, and how we can’t wait for everything to get back to normal – what if we see it as a giving tree? Can we allow ourselves to trust the gifts inherent within it, even if we can’t exactly see what they are or how they will unfold? 

What have we found to appreciate in staying home, or being with our children and/or our partners more – even if it has been challenging? What self-realization or insight has arisen? What is there to have gratitude for in the quiet, in the not commuting, in having less to plan, in the decreased busyness?

Perhaps we have lost our jobs in order to make room for a new right livelihood that will give us greater joy. Maybe we left our home and moved to a new one where we will meet awesome bros and have amazing experiences we would not have otherwise had. 

We might have to ask for help as we lean on others for a time, accepting their kindness and generosity and giving them the gift of our gratitude.

Possibly we are meant to volunteer, to be in service to those temporarily in need, which we may never have done before because we didn’t have time.

Sometimes the gifts are difficult to see because they feel particularly painful, as when recognizing the need for a relationship to break up and change form. Perhaps we are experiencing the pain of loss of a loved one. Or facing the fear of giving up some part of our identity that no longer serves.

Whatever the pandemic has given us, let us not make it real by rejecting it and allow our ego mind to make its predictable, ungracious, fear-based meaning of the experience. Rather, let us see and accept its gifts, trusting that Spirit transforms our every fearful perception to one of love if we have the willingness to see it differently. 

Santa Claus

Whether we know him as St. Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Papa Noel, Babbo Natale, or another name – he is characterized as the Dude who stops by and leaves gifts and sweets for GOOD children at Christmas. We can see all him as symbolic of our Father/Mother God with one important shift in our perception: remembering that A Course in Miracles teaches us that we are all innocent and perfect as children of God, and that the concept of “naughty” and “nice” is bullshit. Everyone is nice, everyone is good, and those that appear to be behaving badly are just calling out for love – and responding with love is always the answer. 

When we see others and thus ourselves through the eyes of the ego, we see guilt. Let us instead choose to see ourselves and each other as God created us by extension to be – perfect Love. In this view we are all deserving of the abundance of good in all forms because it is simply what we are. We ARE all good. 

When you see the symbol of Santa with a child on his lap, let that represent the Truth that we are forever held in God’s embrace, that we have already been given everything, and that there are no naughty children in the Mind of God.

Presents

A Course in Miracles teaches us that “To give and receive are one in truth.” Meaning, there is no difference – they are two sides of the same thing. Jesus instructs us thus, “Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone,  and see how quickly peace returns to us. Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us, and we can see.” 

He is describing the circular nature of giving and receiving, and teaching us that by offering peace, we gain it – and what more valuable gift is there?

I am not getting all up in my Grinch here, or suggesting that it is wrong to want to give gifts of the world to our loved ones, or that we all should just announce to everyone that from now on all they are getting is light for Christmas because that’s what Jesus says we have to do. (Way to turn everybody against Jesus – Merry Christmas, ego!)

But I am saying that if we align our minds with Spirit around the whole idea of giving, recognizing that as we give we receive, it will completely change our experience of gift-giving – and we actually will give the gift of light in the process.

In A Course in Miracles Jesus is teaching us precisely what to give to our brother. The gift of miracles. 

The miracle is a shift in perception, from fear to love. The transformational tool that Jesus provides us with, the light that shines all of our darkness away and allows us to once again see with Christ vision is the unique version of forgiveness that it teaches. Forgiving our brothers for what they haven’t done, remembering that we are dreaming a dream, and forgiving ourselves instead for dreaming it.

This practice is what seemingly magically realigns us with our Divinity, our wholeness, our perfection – the realization that we are the Christ. The practice of forgiveness is what enables to see our brothers – and therefore ourselves – as the extension of God that they, and we, are.

Baby Jesus

The rock star of the Christmas show is Jesus, in whose birth we see the manifestation of Christ Consciousness into the world. 

Christ is not Jesus’s last name. It is who we collectively are as the Son of God. The Christ within is our recognition of the bliss of pure being, pure awareness, pure presence – that ineffable, undefinable perfection of love, peace, and joy that is who we are. It is our natural state, the Truth of us, the perfect light we were aware of swimming around in before we had the false belief that we separated from our Creator.

We have only to remember our innocence, and to fully realize that the separation never occurred. As we see the innocence of the Christ Child in each of our brothers, we see it in ourselves. We become the savior as we allow our brothers to save us from our unconscious guilt.

Lights

We are light. Pure light. That is all we are, and all we ever have been. We knew that at one point, and there is a remembrance of that buried deep in our minds. 

So, let it be so. Each and every time that you see strings of twinkling lights adorning a home, a candle in a window, a Christmas tree, a menorah, a fire in a hearth, a lighted wreath – allow it to be a reminder to you that it is ALL a representation of the shimmering Christ light in YOU. Let it symbolize that YOU are the light of the world, God’s holy Son. Let all of the lights in this season of light be reflections of the truth in you, brighter than the brightest star. Your brilliance as a beloved child of God, shining your Christ-light into the joined minds of all of your brothers – that is what all of these sparkling manifestations of the light are for, if you choose to see with Christ’s vision.

So, my mom used to bake a birthday cake for Jesus every year on Christmas Eve. It was her way of reminding us that Christmas is not about the gifts, or rather – it is about what the gifts actually symbolize. So I like to think that that is what it’s all really about – the celebration, the tree, the gift-giving, making merry with loved ones – whether in person, on video, or in our minds – the singing, the feasting – it’s throwing an epic, month-long, gigantic birthday party for the Christ Light that is born in all of us. Even if we’re doing it all on Zoom.

This is JBro’s cake from last year!

Thank you so much for being at this party with me! If something in this post resonated with you, or helped you to get your jingle back and reframe Christmas in the Covid Era, I’d love to hear about it – please leave me a comment below or send me an email.

I love you more than the movie “Love Actually”, white chocolate peppermint bark, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra tunes cranked up LOUD because,

“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is sing it loud for all to hear!”

– Buddy the Elf

All things merry and bright.

Love, Kelly

Rev. Kelly Russell, Transformational Coach and Teacher of A Course in Miracles 

kelly@rockyourjoy.com