"These things I have spoken unto you, that my JOY might remain in you, and that your JOY might be full."

Wow! There you have it! A one sentence peek into the cosmic rationale that inspired the long ago prophet we’ve come to know as Jesus to walk the dusty byways of ancient Judea challenging minds and enchanting hearts with a teaching that was so pure and so inspired it’s still haunting us this Carolina Christmas time, nagging at us to wake up; take a deep breath, feast our eyes on the signs and sounds of the season and EN-JOY the grace.

Can’t you just hear Him, bopping into Honeysuckle Hollow on a sweet, swinging beat, singing, "how pretty the lights, how pretty the smells, how pretty the candles, how pretty the bells?"

Can you feel Him... Singing and laughing His way into our hearts and leaving no doubt that the name of His game is "EN-JOY!" and that we are here to add deep meaning to Christmas by refining our capacity to toast the whimsical, applaud the absurd, love the ludicrous, adore the arrogant, embrace the enigmatic, welcome the witless and perfect playfulness as primary response to the ever changing flow of form and circumstance we call our lives.

Sound like a plan? And what better time on earth could there possibly be to work on our capacity to express light-hearted levity as our basic nature than the "Season to be Jolly!?" Are we blessed, or what!

So, what’s preventing us from feasting on a steady diet of chuckles as basic emotional nutrition? As I consider the question, one thing becomes eminently apparent. Unless I get clear on the identity of the "who" that’s really responsible for making a light-hearted relationship with the "Now" hard to come by, I’ll surely stay lost in the fantasy that there’s an "it" out there that’s responsible for turning my joy into a lump of coal in my stocking.

Not!!!

Regarding the identity of the "who" that’s truly the culprit, Walt Kelly said it best when he had Pogo observe, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

And there we have it. Try as we may to shift blame and disown responsibility for our emotional hard times, the truth lies clear and undisguised... each one of us is individually responsible for the thoughts we think and agree with, thus the feelings those perceptions inevitably give birth to.

Please repeat this with me... "Every emotional trip, regardless of its nature, is a self-imposed experience."

The next time you find yourself blaming "it," "they," "them," "he,’’ "she," or "you" for an episode of upsetness . . . remember who the real enemy is!

If we are thinking and agreeing with thoughts that are spiritually uninformed (the "what’s happening to me" or "the story line" part of this equation), it’s straight to an emotional lock-down of one kind or another -- be it frustration, resentment, anxiety, guilt, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And, as Jesus advised in Matthew 5:26, we’ll stay in lock-down "till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing," which is Aramaic for, "until you’ve milked your drama dry." There just isn’t any slack in the system. "As a man thinketh, in his heart so is he"... and, of course, she as well.

On the other hand, if your perception of ongoing reality is based on thoughts that pass the muster of being "true witness," and of "good report", it’s "zippity-doo-dah" and welcome to the "Joy" of the Lord!

So, the dance we are doing is the cosmic exercise of learning to talk to ourselves about our life and times using mental constructs that are chaste and free of any hint of "bearing false witness." And how, exactly, do we "bear false witness?" Oh my, let me count the ways.

Any time we find ourselves describing a piece of earth business with thinking patterns that are "earth treasure" oriented (a.k.a. spiritually uninformed) it is absolutely inevitable that we’ll come away with a perception of our life that will severely challenge our capacity to maintain lighthearted contentment as basic nature.

As we begin to carefully observe our mind at play, we’ll inevitably wake up to how different aspects of our life influence cognitive function. We’ll become familiar with its different patterns of thought processing. We’ll notice the variations of Ebenezer’s "bah-humbug!" thinking that lead to more suffering, more pain, to greater tightness and contraction. And, we’ll gradually refine our capacities to withhold agreement from any conclusions about the nature of the IS that perpetuates suffering.

Conversely, our commitment to watching mind at play like we would "watch a rattlesnake" will reveal the patterns of thinking that lead to more spaciousness and openness, to a free, easy, and joyful relationship with ourselves and anything else that is populating our moment.

And in that discovery we’ll find that the key to making our joy "full" is to stand at the gate of agreement and tenaciously refuse to grant passage or credence to any collection of thoughts and images that don’t first satisfy the scrutiny of a witness nature grounded in an abiding clarity that intuitively separates the "wheat" of Truth from the "chaff" of false witness. My daughter calls that spiritual tool her "bull-poop detector."

May each of you be blessed to discover the gift of deep insight under your tree this Christmas. In the meantime, know that you are well loved and deeply appreciated in this here heart.

Be well, be at peace, and enjoy the Grace of a
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Namaste,
Chad