Col. 3, Dec. 2008: Spiritual Gifting for the Holidays

Holiday Challenge

by Christina Hazelwood
Although we, Americans, have known it for some time, economic experts have finally made it official. America is in a recession and has been in one for over a year. Why did it take the experts so long to figure out what we all already know? Because until the numbers provided statistical proof, the experts did not want to go out on limb. Now that the experts are on board, I think it’s safe for me to put forward an economic challenge to those who dare take it.

Our traditionally Christian nation, is known to go all out during the Christmas season, giving in the spirit of the Christ Consciousness. A consciousness that resides at our highest level of being in which we are kind, loving, giving and receiving. A level of consciousness that the world’s prophets and exemplars have attempted to portray in thought, word and deed. Such prophets include Jesus the Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa and a host of others.

Given the fact that we are officially on economic hard times and that this is the time of year when the spirit of the Christ is worshipped and acknowledged, I challenge you to truly give and receive from your highest state of being from now until the start of the new year of 2009. I challenge you not to purchase or accept ANY gifts of a material nature and instead give and receive gifts that are truly of the spirit. If you desire to combine materiality with spirituality I challenge you to give and receive in a material way AFTER the New Year. If anyone questions you, inform them that you have taken on this challenge for a period of one month and ask them to hold off on any material gifts until the season comes to a close.

I encourage you to join with me to give and receive gifts that come from a spiritual consciousness, that temporarily exclude materiality. Although we are, of course, material beings, we can sometimes run off course, forgetting that we are also spiritual beings. By taking on this challenge, I hope to ignite our natural state of giving and receiving, one that lies in a state of joy, harmony, balance and love. When we give in a material way the purity of the Christ Consciousness is sometimes lost, replaced with worry over how much money we have or don’t have and can sometimes stimulate feelings of competition, jealousy and deficiency.

Rather than giving and receiving gifts of a material nature, I challenge you to give gifts of a spiritual nature, gifts that share, connect, include, stimulate, heal, bring joy and clarity, just to name a few. You need only turn on the squawk box, go to a web site or visit a mall to be besieged by a thousand suggestions of what to buy and what material item to give. Instead I will list here some spiritual gift ideas that you can choose to give and/or receive:

Apologize for your bad behavior
Confront someone on his or her bad behavior
Reach out and connect with someone you lost track of
Make someone his or her favorite food
Express your feelings positive, negative and everything in between
Clean up a mess
Accept responsibility for your mistakes
Acknowledge someone’s abilities
Tell someone you love them
Rejoice in your own goodness
Talk a walk with a friend
Call someone for no reason at all
Give up a grudge
Create or make something
Let it go
Invite someone over
Just listen
Say hello to a total stranger
Have a good cry
Dance in your underwear
Teach someone something you need to remember
Be proud of yourself
Validate what someone just said
Remember and reflect
Develop a “can do” attitude
Help someone with a task just for the fun of it
Learn something new
Pray for good things
Detach from the outcome
Be outrageous
Participate in a group activity
Take a rest
Express empathy to someone who needs it
Come prepared
Stop trying to control things
Take a breath
Make friends with your in-laws
Show some enthusiasm
Stand up for something that’s right, even when others don’t
Accept people for who they are
Meditate
Look at things from another’s perspective
Enjoy nature and its bounty
Be nonjudgmental towards yourself and others
Stand on your own two feet and get off of someone else’s
Make a commitment
Come when you are invited
Find the courage to do the hard thing
Listen to a great tune and share it with others
Feel your own pain
Receive with joy and express it to the giver
Question an authority figure
Write someone a note
Reveal yourself and tell the truth
Willingly take an emotional risk
Stop trying to win
Experiment
Practice what you preach
Give someone a hug
Think it through before you react
Demand to be heard
Enjoy something or someone beautiful
Thank someone for his or her effort
Be kind for no reason at all
Show up on time
Restrain yourself when you feel attacked
Stay late
Agree to disagree
Do the work yourself
Act like an adult even when you don’t want to
Walk your talk and talk your walk
Try it their way for once
Accept this challenge

Associated Links

Year-Long Recession

The NBER's definition of recession