by Mark Swinney
Are you familiar with the story “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”? Our family has the Jim Carey movie version on DVD and we all crack up when we watch it together each December. It’s based on a book by Dr. Seuss. There’s also a Grinch cartoon that been broadcast pretty often over the years. Now there’s even a show on Broadway in New York.
Besides the Grinch, there’s another very important character in the story-Cindy Loo Who. This little girl cared so much about the true meaning of Christmas that nothing could take it away from her. I love the part of the story is when Cindy Loo sings for joy. She sings even though someone had stolen everyone’s gifts in the attempt to stop Christmas from coming! It’s quite stirring.
That “someone” of course, was the Grinch. And when the Grinch saw that what he’d done hadn’t stifled the joy of Christmas for any of the Whos in Whoville, something significant began to dawn on him. He decided that perhaps Christmas doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe you’ve thought that very same thing. Sharing the holiday fun and its message of love and peace is the genuine meaning of Christmas. And love and peace are certainly worth celebrating.
The Grinch tried to stop Christmas from coming, but Dr. Seuss showed that it was impossible. But sometimes you might find other people’s behavior stealing your joy during the holidays. When someone is being selfish, or just plain hateful, the joy of Christmas can feel as far away as the North Pole.
One Christmas season, I remember a very angry man at a car rental counter. The car he’d reserved wasn’t ready and he was yelling about it and pounding his fists. Now, the music playing in that rental office was the song “A Holly Jolly Christmas.” I grinned to myself because it looked like the man was keeping time with the song as he beat his fist on the counter. At the same time, I couldn’t help but pray. I don’t know how things turned out for him, but I hope, at least at some point since then, he has felt the spiritual joy and love of Christmas. And really, can he avoid it?
In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy says that the “…Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him.”
Every time I read that, I always am struck by how the divine nature literally animated Jesus. It hints at how we are animated, too. It’s God’s nature that gives us impulse for our acts, thoughts, and even our being. And that’s why the joys of Christmas are always ours-every day of the year.
Just think-it is the character of God that defines His creation! What a wonderful way to have things set up. The influence of God is always present. You feel it by giving your consent to loving God and man just a little more than before. It often begins in a quiet, private way, just between you and God. Each of us is always with God. All the selfishness, condemnation, self-righteousness, or hatred in the world could never really come between you and God.
In some ways, then, the celebration of true Christmas will always be a private thing, independent of lights and music and ribbons. As the Christ-idea appears-that is, as you realize that God loves us all and gives us only good-it is natural to celebrate and share this realization freely. If you share with others and get nothing back, nothing about Christmas is taken away from you. God’s love always burns as brightly as ever for you.
The birth of Jesus in a stable symbolizes this fact. It was a quiet event that gave the world the true idea God. Mary Baker Eddy wrote in another Christmas book, “Christ and Christmas”, these words (p. 53):
Forever present, bounteous, free,
Christ comes in gloom;
And aye, with grace towards you
and me
For health makes room.
True Christmas celebration is full of joy, because this holiday celebrates the bright light of Christly thinking and living. It can’t be stolen by the Grinch-or by anyone who is behaving for the moment like a Grinch! Our true nature, as God’s creation, is simply to express divine Love. Loving God translates in feeling love and appreciation for others. It comes naturally.
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I love how you make the Science of the Christ so sweet ‘n’ simple. And solid ‘n’ strong. And stable-izing!
Also, thanks for introducing me to Cindy Loo Who. I have a Cyndee Lou horse friend in Virginia who was healed when the divine nature that animates her — pure Love, pure Spirit — was recognized as her only real being. The vet had given up hope of her ever being able to walk, much less run, when she was only a few days old. Now she races around the pasture with her friends, like any other spry, playful yearling. No Grinch stole her Christmas joy!
Your ideas helped me get through a Christmas with a family that is usually filled with grinches! Thanks.