by, Nadirah Aqueelah Shakir

Make your holiday, holy.

People are breaking the bank for gifts for loved ones and friends. It’s a nice sentiment. The night air on Christmas eve was filled with beats and lyrics of all kind. I didn’t hear gospel though. People are celebrating what’s known today as Christmas, which is symbolic of the birth of Christ. Some say it’s Jesus’s birthday. However, if you study enough, you may discover that Jesus wasn’t born in December. That’s neither here nor there. What is here, even though the physical body of Jesus is not, is the Christ.

The Christ was here before Jesus awakened to it, and it will be here until the end of what we know as time. So, what is the Christ? The Christ is the perfect idea of man in the Mind of God. The Christ is the divine pattern, unblemished and untarnished which God originally intended for man before there was what we refer to as sin of any kind. The Christ is the Mind which beholds no sin. The Christ is the perfection and purity of the highest thought.

So, on these holidays, which I wholeheartedly view as an opportunity for spiritual reflection and treat as holy days (first and foremost), it is so important to align oneself and one’s thoughts with the spiritual meaning, and the symbolic or metaphysical meaning of the day that we celebrate.

On Christmas there is often the exchange of gifts. People set up trees and decorate them with ornaments. Some people put lights on their house, and they set out cookies for Santa to eat as he comes down the chimney. But what if you don’t have a chimney? What if you are glucose intolerant or challenged with a sugar addiction? What if financially in this season you cannot afford to buy gifts, or trees, or add another hundred or two to the light bill to put up lights? What do you do then?

You celebrate your Christ by acknowledging the spiritual gifts that The Father of Lights have encoded within you from birth. Set the intention to become aware of your spiritual gifts. Spiritual giftedness goes beyond anything material that we can buy. Sharing our spiritual gifts often fulfil us in ways that no amount of cookies and milk can. Each time we connect within and acknowledge our spiritual gifts, we water the roots of our spiritual tree and grow robust and heavenly.

Every thought that we have in recognition to our spiritual gifts waters our spiritual tree. When we share our spiritual gifts, we light up our lives; but we also light up the consciousness of another human being, thereby lighting up the planet—the whole house of God. This makes The Father of lights happy. I believe Jesus smiles at this as well, as he proclaimed that we would not only do the works that he did, but greater.

So…if we are celebrating Christmas or the birth of the Christ let us remember The Christ, and the perfect ideas in which it contains. Some of my favorite spiritual gifts are Faith, Strength, Judgment, Love, Power, Imagination, Understanding, Will, Order, Zeal, Elimination, and Life. I invite you this Christmas to meditate on The Christ and these divine ideas and lean into what they mean for you. I also invite you to look at your loved ones, friends, and family, and see the prefect idea in the Mind of God in which you feel they represent. Share it with them before you give them their material gift or after, as I realize that some of us may have already opened our gifts this early morning. Celebrate, laugh, be merry, do all the things, but don’t forget The Christ. Become one with that idea. We all encoded with the Christ pattern. How are we using our spiritual gifts? Where is our consciousness? Merry Christmas, and because I am who I AM, Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanza, and the Happiest gifted New Year.