Stripped and aligned

How the Grinch, a virus, a star, and an environmental movement change us

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I've been thinking about the Grinch and the lessons that we learn when he stole all the packages, the food for feasting, all the glitter of Christmas.  And I've been thinking about that in the context of this moment of the Corona virus because in many ways, as we reflect back on this past 9 months, the Corona virus has felt a bit like the Grinch as we watched the Grinch removing all of the things that we think of as being essential to Christmas, essential to, I guess, a good celebration. Um, and then being left with the truth of things, which is that those are not the essential element of Christmas. 


The Corona virus, too, has been stripping things away.  Stripping away nonessential shopping and travel.  Forcing us, or inviting us, into a time of quietude and reflection, of, in some ways back to basics. People were baking bread.  I've observed families gathering in the park together, rather than in malls or in separate groups of specific ages, but all ages gathering together in the park.  Stripping us back to what is essential, to our families and communities and looking out for each other.  And being gifted with fresh air, skies that are clear, views of mountains that have not been seen for decades. Songbirds singing. Waters clearing. 


It doesn't take away the truth of the hardship of this moment.  But it is in hardship that we step into our moments of a truth, really. In the same way that both the Whovillians ....Whovillites?.... the people from Whoville did, and the Grinch did, when the excesses of Christmas were stripped away.  Now, of course, at the end of the Grinch everything was returned, with a shift.  And we're not gonna see that for this Christmas, for ourselves. But what remains is the essence of Christmas. 


And I was thinking of that too in the context of the Christmas Star.  The Christmas Star is the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn that happens once, not in decades, not even in generations, but in centuries, many centuries.  That we can visibly see this alignment from here on Earth.  At least you can if you don't live here on the west coast of BC where it's mostly been cloudy.  But the alignment is there, that is the point.  The Christmas Star calling us to the Prince of Peace, the Light of Christ, the Love birthed into the world. 

When we are in alignment for the world, and hold that
for the healing of the world, and of our communities,
of our families and of ourselves,
​then Love shines in the world.

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And I'm thinking of it in terms of alignment because the Corona virus calls us into alignment.  As does the Christmas star.  And when we are in alignment for the world, and hold that for the healing of the world, and of our communities, of our families and of ourselves, then Love shines in the world .... .... 


It's such a beautiful reminder.  And I was also thinking about, O what is it now? a year, just over a year ago, when thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people around the world gathered to say “Enough! We have to do something or our Earth cannot survive.”  And I believe that when we put that honest energy out into the World that the Universe listens.  And even though, for the most part, we all then got back into our cars and went back to our jobs and went, you know, back to the ball, the universe heard us, and the universe provided us with the opportunity to do the very thing that politicians, and even ourselves really, never believed we really could do.  Because it would cause too much pain, too much inconvenience.  It wasn't even the pain people were concerned about.  It's just, you know, we want what we want and we do our things. 


But with the Corona virus we couldn't do that.  Or we chose not to.  We chose, all of us, sure with a lot of, uh, encouragement from our leaders who were suddenly spurred into action, to stay home when we could stay home, to only go out for essential things.  And it has been hard, absolutely.  And yet we have seen that we can, by doing that, change the world.  I watched communities reach out and say “Oh, I know we've been saying for decades we can't really help the poor, we can't really support people.”  And yet we have done that.  We have done that on a grassroots level and we have done that on a government level.  We have learned to bake bread.  We have learned to speak to each other.  We have used our technology for connection, for the ways it was intended, to do good, to help us stay connected. 


All of this, this alignment, this universal response to our own deep desire that this Earth be well, that we be well.  And we can continue to respond to that. 


And this moment of Christmas calls us to continue to respond to that, to birth Love through our own selves into the World.  To be the Light of the World.  To Walk in Beauty.