Everyone's Life Can Be a Message of Love

"One of my very favorite sayings comes from Mahatma Gandhi:
'My life is my message.' When you get right down to it, that's really all we have to offer... Your life really is your message, What type of message are you sending?"
Richard Carlson, Don't Get Scrooged

Don't Get Scrooged is a book I pull off the shelf every Holiday season. It helps me stay balanced. There's such a rush of emotions at this time of the year, and that rush takes me out of my comfort zone. This is noticeably true for many people. So many of us aren't used to coping with our feelings in the normal realities of everyday life. Along comes the craziness of the Christmas season and we can quickly transform from the benevolence of Father Christmas or Mother Theresa to the orneriness of Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch. Instead of brushing off this frightening transformation, which most of us do, let's take some time to explore it further this year.

We can start by asking ourselves "Who am I really? Am I the person I profess to be: A Mother Theresa clothed in Christ? Or am I really an Ebenezer Scrooge in Tiny Tim clothing? Am I true to the words I speak, or do my actions frequently contradict my words?" Deep down many of us probably don't know the answers to these questions because we are so often alienated from our feelings and true selves. We forget that our life is our message to the entire world around us. But it comes back to hit us in the face every December. The frenzy of the season knocks us off kilter, and the dark spaces deep within us fly to the surface, exposing our weaknesses, and the fact that we haven't done a very good job of knowing ourselves or living what we profess.

Sometimes we only know the person we wish to project to the rest of the world: Our false persona. Our mouths profess one message and our actions profess an opposite message. If, after some good self-examination this tends to be true for us, we need to look at the message that was the life of Jesus Christ. That message was very clear: Love your God, your neighbor (including your enemies) and yourself. Jesus preached this message and he also lived it. He offered his love to everyone-- business owners, beggars, lepers, lawyers and tax collectors; men, women, pagans, Samaritans and Jews; mothers, prostitutes, laborers, the faithful and the unfaithful. He knew that love isn't truly love, isn't truly of God, unless it is given away freely to everyone. And because he wasn't busy judging people (as we often are), he had time to be patient and compassionate, open and forgiving, understanding and merciful with everyone. He loved people beyond their behavior, and this is something we all need to learn to do-- especially at this time of the year.

Jesus was authentic. His life was his message. He lived his message of Love. We are called to do the same, but first we have to define our message. Is it love, or is it greed? Is it about others, or is it only about me? Is it about the people I like, or is it about everyone (including my enemies)? Is it about revenge or about forgiveness? Is it about being closed-minded, or about being open-minded? Is it about judging and condemning or is it about empathy and mercy? Once we define and understand our message, we can begin to live it as Jesus did.

Let's define our message today. Hopefully it will be a positive one and not a negative one. Hopefully it will express our gratitude for God's ever-faithful love that flows freely to us and everyone. And hopefully it will gently nudge us into living a message of love, no matter how crazy the holiday season, or life in general may become. Love is the message that allows our souls to shine! "God bless us all-- Everyone!"

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