Christmas Carol paradoxes 1 – Adeste Fideles

My goodness, Christmas carols are loaded with contrasts and paradoxes. And so am I. Good and bad. Deserved and undeserved. Earned and unearned. Beautiful and ugly.

“Born the king of angels.
Come let us adore him.”

Adore? As when we smile at a baby’s sweet face? That is not bowing down to a king.

How did the Lord of all come to us? By lording over us? Or by being born as a defenseless baby in desperate need of the same loving care every single one of us needed as a baby?

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More on “O come, come, all ye faithful…”:
(poem) Advent prequel to Footprints

Share your favorite carol lyrics and the paradoxical mysteries they raise inside you, below, please!

Authenticity, Uniqueness, and Control

We did a reading (maybe July 18, 2020) about the futility of attempting control, and each shared something they’ve tried to control. I had no answer in that moment. I’m lately feeling instead like I’m more alive when I embrace unfolding, whether as a party plan at my house, or a disposition anticipating a first meeting with my beloved’s mom.

I suspect I may be a kind of person who bemuses controllers. Many in my life have wanted a plan for this and that. I’m not a planner. My boss wants to plan for how to win a sale. I’m not a planner. I am Neil. When I, or a team I am on, accomplishes something because of me, it wasn’t because of the plan. It was because of me. And them. My plan is, be Neil.

My presentation plans too are very loose. When I cannot develop a feel for an audience because it is too large, then I just retreat into being me. When that happens, even people opposite my personality can learn. When a writer writes, they should write what they know. When a teacher teaches, they should teach WHO they know.

I think unique power lies in authenticity and a disinclination to water things down for such a broad appeal that they lose their specific, individual impact. We have evolved to love stories. Informational seminars are boring to our evolved brains. When they succeed at being memorable, it’s because they were personalized by the speaker, or because they appealed narratively to a universal archetype.

I learned a great deal about me by this exercise about attempts at control. I learned that the world needs Neil. And the world needs Lynn. And the world needs Kacey. Etc.

The world doesn’t need universal guidance.

It needs universal freedom to let each child be who they are. That is what calls out loudly and deeply to our nature, and what we feel when we feel loved without conditions. Freedom to unfold who we are.

After all, I do not love what each of you should be. I love WHO each of you IS. Because who you are, is who you should be.

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Neil D. 2020-07 & 2020-12

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Here is a story about how one person’s living out his nature bestows a sense of freedom on those who see him doing it.

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Another creative writer also explains:

I’m not a big planner either. I fly by the seat of my pants a lot. Type A personality people, particularly teachers, hate me. Well, actually they love me bc I’m not a threat to them. I have no desire whatsoever to compete with them. I want them to do what’s best for their students, and I just want to do what’s best for my students. But they don’t like it when I veer from the lesson plan. You’re right; I don’t teach my content; I teach my students. Teaching isn’t just my job, it’s who I am. [Some people from my past] never understood that.
My lesson plans are very precise; very detailed. But I never follow them exactly because a million things happen between the time I develop them and the time I execute them.
I like how you roll, Durso.
(KC 2020-07-18)

Glow sticks break before they glow? Not exactly…

“It’s OK to be a glowstick. Sometimes you have to break before you can shine.”

“A glow stick always breaks before it glows.”

It is not true that the glow stick breaks!

The contents which glow remain inside.

It’s the fragile and delicate parts on the inside which have to be shattered before the compartmentalized ingredients mix together glowingly.

Our ego-mind constructs a rigid but fragile compartment, as if we sticks can be made stronger by stiff logic, or rules, or pleasing people outside our stick.

Yet when the whole is bent far enough, that strength shatters…

And we can’t contain the radiance then.

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Neil D. 2020-12-13

Flamingo earrings are a sacrament

Eight-year-old students interrogated the teacher, who has a thing for flamingos: “Why were you absent, Ms. Doe?”

“I was sick…”

One gave her a gift, 2 weeks before Christmas: The birds as earrings, which weren’t very comfortable, “But I’ll wear them anyway.”
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If you Google “sacrament,” you’ll easily find some definition like “a religious ceremony or ritual regarded as imparting divine grace.” More deeply, it involves symbols that point to “larger realities” which simply can’t be grasped with the mind alone. After all, how do we describe encounters which impart divine grace?
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This gift wasn’t the last day before Christmas break, like a parent might suggest. Do you think the timing suggests a much larger reality in that student’s heart? I do.

Do you think that child thinks Ms. Doe’s ears are pretty? I’d bet.

It wasn’t an apple or a gift card, but a personal favorite close to Ms. Doe’s heart. That child “knows” Ms. Doe’s heart already, and longs to be closer to it.

I think that’s ALL divine.

And I think flamingo earrings are a sacrament.

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Neil D. 2020-12-11

Elizabeth loving Lizzie

[Advent 2020, amidst a pandemic, visitors are prohibited at care facilities… As her mother is away at one care facility, Lizzy finds herself in another, from which she messages, “You are all the reason why I’m fighting…”]

If I could propose a perspective for your consideration… Don’t fight.

As you lie in that sterile room, you are — by human standards — alone. Human standards are wonderful and have their place in creation, but in time of deepest need, they will never be enough. You are NOT alone by the standard that matters most. Lying in that bed with you is Elizabeth. She was made in the image and likeness of eternal Love.

Historically, the soul has been frequently called the divine spark within. That spark is sitting with you right now. Inside of you. That slice of Love was carried into that room with you by a frightened child of Love we know most commonly as Lizzie. But neither Lizzie nor Elizabeth are common. They are each unique in all of creation. Never has there been, nor will there ever be, another Elizabeth and Lizzie.

YOU carried God into that room with you. And for your service to God’s child, a reward of Love awaits you, as credit to you, for your faith, if you have “eyes to see” that reward.

The divinity you carried there within you rejoiced, and is rejoicing, to be with the divinity that surrounds you; in every breath you draw is the presence of God. The very presence of mysteriously complete Love.

The full Elizabeth is a joyous mystery, swimming in the mystery of Christ’s love for her.

What we most long for when we are feeling alone is not incoming love from others, but instead is someone on whom to pour our outgoing love. For it is as much our nature to pour out love as it is to receive love. It is when we are pouring out love that we most reflect the image and likeness implanted inside of us. You feel OK when you are pouring out your love by phone, text, or the many sincere thank you’s you give to the nurses and human beings taking care of you. And your own mom is doing the same these days. You cannot suppress your nature for pouring out love.

Draw in the Spirit with deep breaths. Mix the divine around you into the divine within you. You are Elizabeth, and Elizabeth is an enormous and essential stitch in the fabric of Love’s creation – infinitely more than enough to comfort the frightened Lizzie. You need someone on whom to pour your transcendent love. This too is why your mother longs to be with you—to pour out her love and feel her deepest nature. To validate her sense of her fullness.

This respite that your mom and you are enduring is a gift—to slow down from spreading your attention to others, and turn it inward, so the larger and true You can shower love on the smaller and distracted and obligated and busier you.

You are NOT alone.

You DO have someone there with you who passionately seeks love poured out from the depths of Elizabeth’s enormous heart:

Love your self, and love God – in the ways only Elizabeth can.

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Neil D. 2020-12-10