Specials

 

'Tis the season...so who or what is your must see Holiday special character? Are you a Rudolph and Hermey?  A why mess with a classic...it's the Grinch! Do you sing along with the Heat and Cold Misers?

As we know, I could've listed many, many more....as many as there are Holiday Specials filling our viewing hours on nearly every channel.

When this pandemic began...sigh.....I checked-in on my crew of self-advocates to let them know I was thinking of 'em and to make certain they were doing OK. In the Spring of 2020, Jan, a person with cross-disabilites shared, "So long as my collection of Christmas movies holds out, I suppose I'll make it through." 

Her answer as to why she watched Christmas specials in the spring is similar to why we watch them year after year:

• They are famiiliar, consistent, known 
• The endings are always happy 
• They call us to our "better angels"
• They connect us back to our innocence

Consider in the midst of a pandemic and how scary and unsettled and upset and worried ---- Jan's choice of watching Christmas specials was a great idea, a comfort.

Enjoy your favorite Chrismtas special.  May the lessons iimparted, the positive energy and hope received be what we embody and share all year round....off the screen and in our lives;

Body language

There is a lot of physicality to hope.  Say the phrase...."I hope......" and I naturally inhale, put my shoulders back, head up, jaw set, a slight grin, eyes wide and with forward intention.  The posture of hope is one of readiness and anticipation. 

On Sunday when the news broke of another variant and today when there was yet another school shooting, I hung my head, my sholders sagged, I looked down, I folded in upon myself....I think it's what they mean when they say one is deflated.

Hope is integral to this Advent season, it's the first candle we light, the word emlazoned on banners and church paraments. 

Hope fills us, we expand and look outward, we stand ready and set.  The major lesson of the season is that God, the Creator of all that is, comes to be with us...to be human, to become enfleshed, one of us.  Wow.  It's one of the way cool notions of having a body. You want positive body image?  God became human.  That works.

Throughout this season of Advent pay attention to your body, how you carry yourself. Are you more inflated or deflated?  Are you fearful and downcast or trusting and looking up?

Listen to your body language...you speak volumes.

Light it up

 

The last couple of days have brought a bit of a weather warm up....not balmy, yet, enough to be able to be comfortably outside to decorate for the holidays.  A drive through the neighborhood last evening revealed several houses now fully lit. One particular residence evidently purchased mulitple strands of red, green, blue and purple lights and then strung them around trees, on the porch, around every available railing, up on the roof and for that needed extra touch lined them on the ground (!).  True, it was a Griswold-ian effort -- yet, it did look good and left me thankful they do not live right next door...yowzers!

Advent is the church season when we most look upward and outward; may we also in all the silent nights look inward.  A favorite line found in the Benedictine Sisters daily liturgy is "and in Your light, we see light."  It speaks of our incarnate-ed-ness, the Divine spark dwells within each of us and in our being present and showing up we bring the light.

If you have a toddler on your gift list, I suggest a flash light. Kids are as fascinated by lights as they are also intrigued by darkness. A flashlight provides the great opportunity to bring light into the darkness and watch all the cool stuff that happens --- the shadows, the reflections, the patterns. A kid with a flashlight will shine it all the time and everywhere.  Kids anticipate nightfall so they can break out their flashlight; no need to flick the lightswitch the kid is armed with their trusty flashlight and enjoy being needed to bring the light. 

I believe we each are needed to bring the light. We too should enjoy it.  When you have a flashlight and good batteries you want to be outside in the nighttime; the darker the night, the deeper the woods, the better!  Get out there!  You got a working flashlight!

When times are the darkest is when we need the brightest of lights. Shine! Light it up!