I still give December 25 a minor side-eye, but the unbridled holiday spirit of my children has slowly humbled, if impoverished, me. My daughters are a stark reminder that my life isn’t all about me. It’s about me in connection with them, with you, and with the world. 

The messiness of the holiday season brings life’s contradictions into stark relief. We experience both the joy and discomfort of togetherness while balancing the serenity and loneliness of solitude. We express the immaterial emotions we hold for one another in the form of material gifts. We celebrate the birth of a new beginning while grieving the passage of those we have loved. In growing, we accept the imperfect perfection of life’s incongruities. 

In the end, we must live with these paradoxes because the universe is one giant coincidencia oppositorum. We only know grief through love. We only know compassion through our own suffering. We have a feeling of self – of explicit differentiation – yet we are all woven into an implicit unity in which everything depends on everything else. 

In the end, there is little to do but surrender to the strange, beautiful Christ-mess of it all. If you draw inspiration from this day to practice forgiveness, compassion, and gratitude for the abundance of what fills your life, then you will be walking in the footsteps of the baby born on this day. You will be finding Christ in the mess.

Citation: Jeff Krasno, Commune. 25 Dec 2022

https://www.onecommune.com/blog/commusings-christmess-jeff-krasno