Finding Your 2020 Christmas

Finding Your 2020 Christmas with Roger Teel Before we gladly whisk away 2020, we face yet another significant challenge: finding the light, beauty, and joy of Christmas. Rediscover the keys to the indestructible magic of the season.

Transcript

Finding your 2020 Christmas.

A father was sitting reading his newspaper,

A father of four kids from about four to 10 years old,

When one of the children came in and says,

Daddy,

We've got a play for you.

You need to come into the living room.

And so he put his paper down and he followed his child into the living room for what he soon realized would be a Christmas play,

Because there was a large flashlight wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a shoebox.

And then in came one of his sons and his son came over and he stood by the shoebox and adored and stared lovingly at the flashlight.

He was Joseph.

And then his 10-year-old daughter came in with a sheet over her head and she sat next to the flashlight looking lovingly.

She was Mary,

Of course.

And then one of his littler daughters came in with a pillowcase,

A pillow slip on each arm.

And she came in,

Of course she's the angel,

And she announces,

I'm the Christmas angel.

And she begins to flap her pillowcase,

I mean her wings.

And then in comes another of his daughters and she's in her mother's high heels.

And she's the wise man,

A wise person,

Obviously,

Because she's walking in these heels as though she's riding a camel.

And she's carrying a pillow with three objects on it,

Obviously the gifts.

And she comes forth and she says,

I am all three wise men and I bring my gifts of gold,

Circumstance,

And mud.

Gold circumstance and mud.

How often it does seem that circumstances in our life turn from gold to mud.

2020 has been quite a year,

Right?

For many it's been heartbreaking.

For others it's been a time of opportunity.

For many there's been great loss,

Shiftings and changing.

For many there's a sense of estrangement and aloneness and a sense of isolation.

Things often done aren't happening the way they used to.

And then on top of all of those aspects of the pandemic,

There's been much social unrest and rancor that seemed to just get more and more toxic.

Economic and environmental uncertainties.

It's been quite a year.

And as we recount that as the year winds down,

I know it's for many very difficult to heed the classic Christmas carol,

Tis the season to be jolly.

For a lot of folks that's really a tough leap to be jolly.

And how's it going for you in that?

I pray you find the love and the joy in it all,

But I know that many don't.

That it's very,

Very difficult at this time.

So as difficult as it is to find the magic,

To find the joy,

To find the meaning of this time,

It's equally essential that we dive deep into it.

To find those gifts,

To find that meaning that is here.

Even in these muddy times.

So as we quest for the meaning that could turn it around and bring the Christmas experience to us,

Regardless of our faith path.

To really find this something that makes life matter.

We have to also try to make our way through a lot of the muddiness of some theological distortions.

Because in some theological circles over the centuries,

The idea was developed that this time is celebrating merely one person 2,

000 years ago who came forth of a miraculous birth to bring life and joy to this world.

And to some degree there's some truth to that.

But the erroneous aspect of this is the idea that first of all Christ was Jesus' last name.

And that's not the case.

Usually his name in those days was Yeshua ben Joseph or something of that nature.

Yeshua,

Jesus the son of Joseph.

But Christ was later attributed to him.

The problem with that theologically is that the church was built around the idea that he was solely the Christ.

And that that was finished and done.

And to perhaps our benefit,

No doubt,

But that that was all that is about.

And so if we're going to find Christmas,

I want to invite you to embrace some alternatives to some of that so that it becomes deeply meaningful and powerful to you in perhaps a life transforming way.

In this about a year and a half since I retired from the active pulpit ministry,

Although I'm doing other things now,

But in that time I decided I wanted to study with a brilliant mystical Franciscan priest named Richard Rohrer.

Having read a number of his books,

I then decided to go to some of his conferences and I have really enjoyed that.

And basically he's bringing to those who have an openness progressively to what the Christian church was really meant to be.

He's bringing a thought system very similar to what is taught here at Mile High Church.

And his latest book,

And I think his greatest,

Is called The Universal Christ.

The Universal Christ.

He challenges a lot of the assumptions that have been just accepted over the centuries.

And I want to read something that can begin to expand our sense of this whole thing.

In this great book he says,

What if Christ is a name for the transcendent within of everything in the universe?

Now I pause here.

What if the Christ is the transcendent within of you?

That's something within you that transcends pandemics and changes and losses.

What if there is that higher self of you that is the transcendent within?

And what if that transcendent within is also the heart and soul of everything,

Not only every other human being,

But all of creation?

He's saying,

What if Christ is that higher light of God that has brought forth all of creation and is that transcendent within,

Within you and me?

And he goes on to ask,

What if Christ is the name for the immense spaciousness of all true love?

What if Christ is the love that is greater than anything we can even fathom that has brought it all forth?

You see,

You didn't create yourself.

I didn't create me.

But an intelligence and a power and a love did.

And he's saying,

What if that's the Christ and what if that is at the heart and soul of everything?

This love,

This light,

This creative energy.

He says,

What if Christ refers to an infinite horizon that pulls us from within and pulls us forward to?

What if Christ is a life that knows no limits,

An infinite horizon in you,

An infinite possibility in you and me and in all of creation and that what we have to overcome is our stubborn littleness in squashing this greater self,

This greater life,

This greater intention in our experience.

We hang out in the little self and all our petty fears and worries and doubts and,

And rancor against others and self judgment and a sense of separation.

And all the while there's this infinite horizon pulling at us.

And finally he asks,

What if Christ is another name for everything in its fullness?

And so for me the mud settles and I begin to realize that there's something deeper for us.

And I bless anybody who wants to hang out in any of the older ideas or the former ideas or the prevailing ideas of a single Christ centuries ago.

And yet I know that everybody hungers and thirsts for something more because there is that more.

We really hunger and thirst to,

As Emerson said,

Get out of the way of the divine circuits and let our lives begin to bring forth their glory,

Their possibilities,

Their Christ light.

And as I said,

This is a message for people of all faiths.

It's not owned by or constrained by just the Christian faith.

And many other faiths have sought to find a way to express this same thing in their own manner,

In their own understanding.

So yeah,

In 2020 we're not able to do all of the things,

The cherished traditions and activities that we have been accustomed to.

2020,

We may not have access to being with as many of the loved ones and friends as we used to.

Here in 2020 we're not able to come into this glorious place and light candles together.

We don't have this in 2020.

But what do we have?

We have a manger.

You have a manger.

And I have a manger.

And that manger is our heart.

And it's there that some bigger awareness can be born in our heart of hearts.

There an ever deepening experience of the moreness of us can begin to emerge and begin to be the guiding,

Leading force to bless our lives so that we less and less stumble over ourselves.

And so that we less and less feel deprived,

So that we less and less feel like we're victims of circumstance when we're designed to be co-creators of abundance and beauty and love.

So yeah,

I believe,

I would just offer this for you this Christmas time,

This 2020 Christmas.

You'll find your Christmas in your heart.

Now I could probably say that just about any year,

But it's even more so profoundly true as an invitation this year that we use everything we're all going through,

Not to cower,

Not to feel less than,

But to actually boldly deepen into this true message,

Which is a message that transcends this season.

But yet what better time in this season to visit that manger in our hearts and bring a new openness.

Because my sense is that any person who is really ready to know the truth and to live it is supported by this universe more than they could ever know.

And as Dr.

Michelle and Reverend Josh has talked about all of the incredible programs at our beloved Mile High Church,

I invite you as you visit the manger in your heart to prepare to make 2021 an opportunity whereby the challenges of 2020,

You actually use those well to vault into something greater.

That it's not just about getting over this stuff.

It's about transcending and becoming and using this time,

These experiences well to craft the life you would really love to live and the life you're designed and destined to live.

So first of all,

As we talk about finding Christmas in our heart,

I first of all invite you to find your 2020 Christmas in an awakening heart,

An awakening heart.

I know and I have shared this many,

Many times that as I came to understand the power of my heart and opened my heart,

It was then that I experienced the greatest transformation of this lifetime.

Because that's when I went to a deep immersion in God.

Because you see,

Your heart is the doorway into your God self and into your God experience.

It's the doorway into the God that we have been told is love.

Not a loving God,

But the God that is love,

The very activity of love,

The very essence of it.

So we find our Christmas when we move less and less out of our heads more and more as we move out of our complaints,

As we move out of our lamenting.

And we move into the heart,

Which is rich,

No matter what.

And we begin to awaken that.

And it's there that as we do that,

As we are willing to be like a child that gets vulnerable when they're hurt,

And it feels like many of us have been hurt during these times.

A child,

When they're injured or hurt,

They cry first of all,

And there's nothing wrong with our tears and there's nothing wrong with the human process we've gone through as we've coped with all this.

And yet what the child does is they run into the house for their parent,

Their mom or their dad,

And they tell them all about it.

And then they jump into their laps and they ask for their owie to be kissed.

And they cry a little more and then they stop crying and ask for other little things to make them feel better like a.

.

.

See,

I'm a grandparent so I know I've got this fresh in mind,

For a Band-Aid with the latest comic personality on it.

And then they wipe their tears.

Sometimes they ask for a little treat and then you know what they do?

They run right back out and play.

And often with the very same kids with whom they got hurt.

And I think of that and awakening my heart.

And it calls me to get vulnerable and to not mask my fear,

Not mask my pain or my sadness,

But to do what the child in me knows to do.

Go get some love.

And go to that manger and those arms that await me within and jump into those arms and let it move out of me and receive that love and remember my strength.

Remember the joy of playing in this life full out.

And then I get back in the game of life in some new way.

We find our Christmas awakening our hearts to the reality that this Christ presence I'm speaking about today is not just that presence that Jesus so identified with that it was all that he expressed.

It is still a dynamic active reality today.

And it always shall be.

And it's calling to us from within ourselves and it's calling to us from those around us.

We're invited to see the face of God or the face of the Christ light in every being because it's there.

And if we don't see it it's not because it's not there it's our own blindness.

And to see it throughout all of creation.

I love that Meister Eckhart of 13th century mystic he said what good is it to me if the Son of God was born to Mary 1400 years ago but is not born in my person and in my culture and in my time.

In my time.

What good is it?

And so we have the opportunity to find Christmas in a heart that relaxes that stops shielding itself that opens up and receives and gives of the great elixir and energizer of life and that is love.

And then I would suggest also that we find our Christmas this and any year in a giving heart not only an awakening heart also a giving heart.

For there's something about the intention of life to give and again we go to the inner child of us remembering when we are chronologically children we love to give.

And the inner child still wants to do that.

Still loves to give.

Something gets distorted when we stop giving.

Richard Rohr again says all of us need someone or something to connect our hearts with our heads.

Love grounds us by creating focus,

Direction,

Motivation,

Even joy.

And if we don't find these things in love we usually will try to find them in hate.

Do you see the consequences of this unmet need in our population today?

I do.

So we're called to give of these qualities of the divine within us.

One of my favorite expressions of this was written by a lady who wrote about her husband Mike and evidently Mike he greatly disliked Christmas.

Not because of the basic meaning of it but he disliked it because of the commercialism and the materialism and the franticness that he experienced.

So one Christmas she did something different for her husband Mike.

You see their son Kevin who was 12 at the time was in a junior wrestling program and they held a meet,

A non-league meet with a group of youngsters from an inner city church.

And these African-American kids wore ragged uniforms and sneakers and they actually wrestled without headgear because that was a luxury that they couldn't afford.

And her son's team just whooped this team.

They didn't really stand a chance.

Mike she writes my husband Mike seated beside me shook his head sadly and he said I wish that one of them could have won.

They have a lot of potential but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.

You see Mike loved kids having coached Little League football,

Baseball and lacrosse.

And that's when the idea for his present came to me.

That afternoon I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to that inner city church.

On Christmas Eve I placed an envelope on the tree.

The note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me.

His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years.

For each Christmas we followed that tradition.

One year sending a group of mentally disabled youngsters to a hockey game.

Another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas and on and on.

The white envelope became the highlight of our Christmas.

It was always the last thing open and our children would stop what they're doing and would stand wide-eyed in anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope and revealed its contents.

However the story doesn't end here.

You see we lost Mike last year,

She writes,

To dreaded cancer.

When Christmas rolled around I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up.

But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree.

And by morning three more envelopes had joined it.

Each of our children,

Unbeknownst to the others,

Had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad.

Driving their own acts of giving and loving memory of their father who'd searched for and found the real essence of Christmas.

And I know that tradition will expand even further with our grandchildren and beyond.

Something so beautiful about finding that desire to reach out and to serve,

To honor the impulse of that Christ within us,

To create unity and connection.

You'll find it in a giving heart.

And you'll also then find your Christmas in a forgiving heart.

I don't know if there's a greater gift you could give yourself and perhaps those around you and the world than to get quiet during this Christmas time and take a look at what you haven't healed and do some deep forgiving.

And maybe it's forgiving life for this kind of a year when always there's spiritual opportunities and everything.

And yet we can begrudge that we had to go through all this.

Or maybe there's another area in your life where you've been hurt or your own unskilled behavior may have hurt another.

Christmas is a time where we realize that greater proportion of the spirit and we start activating that awareness so that we can do the healing work at the human levels of our life because it's human to get hurt.

It's human to experience betrayal.

It's human to be mad and angry.

And yet we're more than that.

You're in this world but you're not of it.

You know that.

And so to identify with that greater self,

That largeness of soul in you,

That greater horizon in you,

That transcendent within as Richard Rohr calls it and decide,

Okay,

I'm going to let that be the leadership of my life through my heart and I'm going to forgive.

And you'll find that could be the greatest gift you ever give yourself.

So at this Christmas time,

2020,

I want you to know I love you and I know you're my brother and sister.

I know we're spiritual family,

Wherever you are,

Whoever you are.

And I know that the light and the energy of God has poured itself forth into you and to me and into all creation as an integrity that cannot be diminished,

As a love that will not let us go,

As a higher destiny that calls to each of us.

And we can find this.

And then life becomes the magic and the joy and the ceaseless growth it's designed to be.

And I know we have our ups and downs at the human level,

But there's something in us that knows I'm bigger than that,

I'm more than that and that it is well with my soul.

It is well with my soul.

So I invite you to journey to that manger in your heart and find the gifts you'll find through an awakening heart,

A giving heart and a forgiving heart.

And I close with these words from our beloved founder,

Dr.

Ernest Holmes.

Dr.

Holmes wrote,

Here is the mystery of Christmas.

You are a child of the universe and there is no thing more wonderful than you.

Your own mind is the birthplace for the divine concept to be born.

You are a light unto the world,

A messenger of peace and joy.

You are a herald of the new era.

This is a time for turning to the heart of limitless love,

Which sustains the precious Christ within you.

Reviews

Very good, as all of the Mile Hi ones are.

This is a perfect message for Christmas 2020!

Great message!👏🏾 Perfect for now and going forward!🙏🏾
Thank you!

Thank your this beautiful message. It was absolutely perfect for my heart today. I look forward to sharing it with my family as a Christmas service at home today. With deep gratitude I wish many blessings to you. 😊♥️