hokey holiday busyness

The annual coming of Christmas Day is a reminder of the "mission statement" that an infant is a gift from the creator, no matter if born in animal quarters and surrounded in poverty, too. I have many thoughts and feelings of this season or hustle and bustle, high expectations and obligatory retail excess.
 
1. Double vision: yes, there is lots of feel-good from the cozy music, treats, reunions and traveling about. But all that is _maya_ (illusion as the Buddhists say), like the dew on the grass or smoke on the wind soon gone. The more valuable view is the restatement and glorifying of the Jesus story: born in flesh amid poverty to save one and all, literally 'God with us' (Emmanu-el, EL dennoting the old name for the creator God). So let's not feel bad about the feel-good shineyness, but let's remember that it matters little, and even distracts a lot from the main story about God in your face, on the ground, amid daily living.
 
2. What would the world look like if the Jesus story and God oriented society were global and normalized: not in the sense of Official, state policy like the dopa or soma for the masses, but rather in the true, open-ended and vigilent spirit of the human-God relationship: listening for God's will, but ever inquiring. Never blind obedience, but always 'wrestling with the Word' (literally, Israe-el; where EL is the old name for the creator God). Perhaps then it would be normal to speak God's name and consult God's will or remain open to the Holy Spirit. There would be no 'cordon sanitaire' between Church and State, since all creation would be touched by God. And yet there would be no mortal glibly justifying self-righteousness for her or his personal actions and gains.
 
3. So much of the Church year and familiar routines have little connection to the basic Jesus story and personal relationship to God. Image if all the hoopla were discarded and just the central message(s) were the basis of all activity and discussion.
 
4. It seems so human-centric to insist that God privileges homo sapiens sapiens of all his creatures, and further for us to embody his power in the human form of the Christ. But as a useful life exercise, it is all right to ante up and get in the game, and to use the pieces we have been handed down by tradition and history to help us to fumble around and engage in relationship to our creator and the created world we briefly inhabit.