Today I’m putting away the last of the Christmas decorations. My husband wanted one Nativity set left out, and some years I have left it out for weeks, almost until Lent arrived.  This year it stayed longer than the rest of the decorations but  I’m putting it away today. Epiphany has happened. We’ve remembered the arrival of the mysterious visitors from the Far East and now it’s time to tuck them all into their boxes.

As I put the china statues into their boxes for another year, I’m so aware of them. I’m intrigued by those visitors. I wonder who they were. I wonder where they came from. What did they come seeking? What did they see when they looked at the Christ Child? The Christian faith goes back 2000 years, but the spiritual searching and wisdom of the Far East goes back much, much further. Those visitors knew something. They came to confirm something.

I’ve been reading more Eastern spiritual sources lately. I’m finding much richness, much that explains to me the wisdom teachings of Jesus. I’m putting Nativity figures into boxes, but at the same time Eastern writers are drawing my soul out of a box! For years I’ve been attracted to John 14-17, especially the image of being a branch of God’s vine. As I read and ponder both Eastern and First Nations teachers, I’m hearing so clearly that we are one with God. As intimate as a branch is in the trunk of the tree, so intimate is our soul with God’s. We are one. We carry within our veins God’s DNA. Always have. Always will. Always. Our soul belongs to God.

Jesus is our God-voice for the West. He came calling us back to this God-awareness. All of us have wandered from knowing who we are, whose we are. Each one of us is a lamb that has strayed, a prodigal that has been lost. Each one a prodigal whose return is celebrated. You and I, we are one with God. I am one with God. Every day. Every moment of every day. When I rest in that deep truth, everything looks different.  And oh, I feel loved and know you are loved too. All of us. Loved. Always.

You’re one of visitors from the Far East …. What did you see when you looked at the Christ Child?

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

‘Companion on the Way’ with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada (Founder)