Share the Season :Come home, Avoiding the Dream Stealer’s

Everyone wants to come home for the holidays. Within all of us an internal unrest exists telling us  something is not right concerning  our lives. Rich, poor, settled or wandering, there is a longing for some “thing” to make our lives right. People who have had terrible family experiences, yearn for what they feel they have missed. Nothing may be more difficult than seeing what looks like the ideal and being denied. Bad parenting, disasters, death and abuse can leave terrible scars on a life, keeping some from experiencing what love and acceptance feel like. Having great family experiences is wonderful, and the funny thing is that even the mundane, predictable problems of a family, grow to be appreciated as “home”, and will be missed as “family time” when separated by miles or time. The real question: where is home? Is home a place?, people? or a destination? ,What about the journey from home and back again? Some wander from home to never return, others make a new home and never look back.(really)? And a handful dream of a home they have never ever seen, or as pioneer’s set out looking for a better home!  The bottom line? We all seem to be on a journey of some kind to find home. The place we just belong! I guess in the end home is a place of expectation, safety, security and acceptance. Expectation that it will be just what we want it to be. Safe, secure and where the critic doesn’t exist, at least not the type that is not followed by a hug, with your best interest at heart, because family ultimately just loves you! Unfortunately there are those among us who feel misled, lied to, deceived and just plain used by others. For them home and all of it’s dreams are the very things they seem bent on removing from others. I call these people the “Dream Stealer’s.” By disrupting or revealing the “truth” to those who need to be enlightened as to their position. They readily engage in “getting real”, reducing every moment to only what they can touch, feel or see. They safely hide themselves inside the protection of education, science and rational thought, once they have discovered through their various disciplines what is “really” happening, they will inform you of your errors and try to make you feel just the way they do! They are no better than the evangelical religious zealots they try to debunk with their rational explanations of the world. Through Pursuit of facts which they feel are equivalent to truth, they forget the true position of the their ultimate reality. What is that reality: by their own rational view of life(that they are mere blobs of organic material that are mere accidents of amino acid interactions) they can have no real understanding of the cosmos or even why they draw breath! I have listened to people who so believe this that they have absolute contempt for any point of view that has not been passed through the halls of science! Rational thought requires a frame of reference dependent on one’s own experience and evidence, making rational thought completely subjective at best! This class of  “Dream Stealer’s”, while well meaning, are destructive as well. A second class of “Dream Stealer’s” is much worse, they are the kind that take others dreams and aspirations, and try to dash their pursuit of them for the achievement of their own! They, through action, speech and invention distort and deny what a person knows is going well only to confuse them, obfuscating facts to create an atmosphere of mistrust.And yet a third class of “Dream Stealer’’ are those who have given up, nothing in life will get better, so don’t bother achieving, striving or believing in anything, nothing good ever happens. Who can blame them? Life is hard, then you die! But what is life without hopes, dreams and desires, it is nothing! Jesus, The Christ, which Christmas is all about, is not the promise of bicycles, gift giving or taking care of the needy! Christmas is the story of the Creator of the universe leaving his home to show us all the way back to it and this is the reason we all seek home, we know we are not really there, and imitate it with our desire to have a safe place, with family and friends, a warm fire, with the eternally warm presence of people. Give of yourself this year! Beware of those who try to steal the dream of going home, beware of those who try to stymie your pursuits with their truth, love those who have given up, you will find out what Christmas really is! Christmas was made for Christians, Christ was sent here for all, so we invite all to celebrate with us but please remember we collectively do not esteem the gifts we give, they are only a refection of the Gift we have received, the promise of being “Home for the Holidays”, no matter how irrational it may seem to anyone, it is the hope we cling to. All are invited to come home for the Holidays! Hope to see you there some time!  Have a Merry Christmas!