Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, December 25, 2010

[ In the Christian Kalendar: Feast of the Incarnation/Christmas Day ]

Christ is the population of the world,
and every object as well.
There is no room for hypocrisy.
Why bitter soup for healing,
when sweet water is everywhere?

Rumi, Sufi (Muslim) poet, 13th C


Choice. We all have a choice. That is perhaps the central point of the Biblical myth of Adam and Eve: what “voice” do we choose to listen to from within? To the voice of “God”, or to the voice of “the Serpent”? That choice determines the kind of person we will be or strive to be.

Good or Evil? Just or Unjust? Gentle or Belligerent? Proud or Compassionate? Generous or Miserly? Every day we are making choices, consciously or unconsciously, that shape our Humanity and our Identity.

The “coming of Christ” - the “incarnation”, the presence of the Holy in our flesh - speaks, as Rumi knew, to a universal question: Who are we, as a race, as individuals?

The Choice is ours. “Bitter Soup” or “Sweet Water”.

I wish us all this Christmas Day the power and will to choose Sweet Water.

Brian+