2019-12-12 Seminar – “Let No Despair Darken the Joy of Christmas” [PODCAST]

Dr. Jeffrey Seibert

Jesus tells us, “This is the season when you would celebrate my birth into the world. Yet you know not how to do it” (T-15.X.1:5-6). For most of us, this holiday season, as well as every other season, is filled with the ego’s promises of “peace and joy” as a cover for the guilt and despair that must underlie all of our rituals and routines dedicated to specialness. For as the Course teaches, anything based on separation must by its very nature exclude genuine peace and joy. Jesus offers us a different perspective on the season, focused not on form but on content, based not on sacrificial “giving to get” (T-4.II.6:5) but on the perfectly shared “gift of union” (T-15.X.3:4), where no one can experience loss. Through readings and discussion, this class will attempt to uncover the hidden decisions beneath what for many is experienced as the stress, guilt, fear, depression and despair of the holiday season, as well as the possibility of a shift in our focus and experience through the celebration of the rebirth of the Christ Child (W-p1.182.10:1) within our hearts and minds.