[jamesn.]

Hello everyone; sorry I’ve been absent for so long. These have been absolutely terrific responses to this topic. My holiday approach this year was to try and just listen to whatever came past my radar that informed me from my Christmas past experiences and sure enough several made themselves apparent changing my perspective in a very meaningful way.

(First off welcome to the forums Andreas; sorry it’s taken me awhile to respond. It seems you are already engaged and I definitely am looking forward to the new times ahead with you; your presence here is definitely appreciated!)

Now as to this topic; the first thing I noticed during the holidays was there were little hints or clues that would just present themselves as I would be going about my normal routines and everything would just stop. What I mean by that is the theme of “transformation”; (which I think is one of the main messages of this holiday season); would appear in some form like a movie or interaction of some kind. One of these for example was the movie: “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens was playing in the background while I was doing something and towards the end Ebenezer Scrooge was confronted by a vision of his mortality and the possibility of a life unlived where he sees his grave and no one cared whether he had lived or died; and he becomes totally transformed.

But the one that really got my attention was this little clip of: “It’s A Wonderful Life” that Jimmy Stewart describes to Johnny Carson of why it became one of the most iconic Christmas masterpieces ever made! This message of love and friendship are the inward values that make life worth living I found were reflected by several different moments throughout the coming days when out of nowhere old friends of mine would reach out to me to let me know about something they had seen and share it; or wanted to see how I was doing! It was extremely moving and reminded me that amid the surface display of everyday living the importance of the invisible life that supports the visible one often goes unnoticed; and that this is one of the main messages of the holiday season we can experience each year if we are open to it.

This holiday first posting I think has been a great success and I hope will become a tradition like the one that Michael first put together back on the older version of CoaHO.