Comment from a very good friend

I wanted to take the time and post a response I got from a very good freind Christina--I felt it said so beautifully what I have been saying the last few days----

I was catching up on your blog and thinking about our conversation a few days ago. I know that this holiday has been hard it seems finding that "feeling" of Christmas is hard. But I have found over the last few days thinking back on Christmas' past that it didn't seem like Christmas much then either.

It was in the looking back on the day, the foods we had, the gifts exchanged, the moments shared with loved ones that it seemed more like Christmas. I think we so look forward to getting "somewhere, anywhere" special that we forget the journey. It's that way with Christmas! We get so caught up in the rush of the preparations "having to get things done, things having to get bought" that we forget to enjoy the simple moments while we waiting for that day to arrive.

Much like that mad rush we are always in to get off that train and enjoy that thing called life. But life is made in the moments not at arriving at the destination. For the destination is death.

I saw you had posted about Mother Theresa and her personal * feeling* of emptiness of faith in her life, on your blog. I think that anyone seeking out the real God "not the so called TV evangelist, or the fear mongering, money grubbing pastors" is going to feel alone on most of that journey. Those TV pastors, and those mega churches, are like actors on a stage. They know how to play a crowd of people to get them to "feel the ecstasy" and get whipped up into a false hysteria, a false euphoria.

Because much like the high you get going to see a great movie where the actors reach a part of you nothing in life does, it quickly fades. So does the "high" that people get when they worship these false prophets. So they keep returning to the pastor, priest or whoever gives them that high because they can't feel it on their own.They won't sit patiently in prayer waiting to hear His voice in the fluttering of hummingbird wings, or the rustle of fall leaves, in the myriad of colors in the rainbow.

They are addicted to the spiritual high but don't realize that God is in the peace not the high, because He is the peace and the light. The high is no more real than the false God they are pushing. God doesn't need huge Cathedrals, he doesn't need our money, he doesn't need 15000 people worshiping together. He finds us anywhere we are when he calls us, so why do these people preach this way? Because they know the road to God is a lonely road that people without faith, or with shaky faith are afraid to take alone.

Those searching for inner peace in life don't want to feel alone, no human does, we are social people. We like being with others for the most part. So we want to feel God like we feel the touch of other humans when we hug or kiss or just see each other. We want tactile contact with God. When some people searching feel they don't find Him in their lives they search out anything that will fill that role. And there are far too many leeches ready to bleed them dry because they know how desperate they are to feel something, anything outside the loneliness of normal life.

They do so much to keep that crowd aroused like an actor to keep them coming back. Because that's how they keep the crowds of people who keep the money coming in. They get them all fired up and those people look to that human being as God like because that person can bring them to that point that they don't usually feel in their search for God. The real God. Because the real God does not come to us in burning bushes and fires like tornadoes. He comes to us in the quiet. You want to feel God? He is in the peace.

That is God we seek, that is peace we seek. They are one and the same. It is in the thousand little things all around us that we don't see because we are so busy looking for Him, or chasing the things of this world that we don't see the joys he blesses us with everyday. I too felt like you do. I have a lot of questions. I am reading St. John of the Cross and discovering what that "Dark Night of the Soul" is all about. That dark night that Mother Theresa talked about feeling. It is a lonely path we walk to God because like the path he walked to the crucifixion he was alone. He cried out on the cross "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me"?

He felt alone, and He was Christ! He knew the Father existed and yet He did not feel Him at that moment of hour of darkness in His life! God had not forsaken him, but it was a journey to the cross that Christ had to walk alone otherwise it would not have been a walk of faith. Because faith which is the purest real love requires that we believe in something or someone not based on things we know or see, but what we believe and feel in our hearts.

I think that was what Dorothy found in the movie "The Wizard of Oz". She found out that she wasn't alone, that those around her loved her and that there is no place like home. Home as they say is where your heart is. And anywhere your heart is, is home. Your home with God, with Christmas, is in your heart. Look for it there. That is where I found it this year. So just remember that this Christmas you are not alone, He came on this day to show us His deep love for us and to show us the path that we too would walk "seemingly" alone.

God gave us His Son to show us that this journey as humans would be difficult, it would be very hard at times, even lonely, but we will be rewarded for our love and faith at the end. I do hope that you are getting better and that you find the "love of Christmas" in the coming days. Look for it in your heart Charlie. Just like you keep Ron and others there.

You will find it there too. It won't be in brightly wrapped gifts or in decorations of silver and gold but in the little moments of sipping eggnog with Jim and Shane, in watching your mother wonder at your beautiful handmade bracelet, in the acceptance in Jim's eyes when you tell him you love him on Christmas morning. That love comes from God himself to you as gifts this Christmas. Accept them, from Him and know that He is there with you every second of every day even if you don't feel him.