If you present mankind with an opportunity, what happens is that each culture will take that opportunity and create other opportunities which may not have the same value. Putting human beings into a perfect world and giving them the freedom of choice, God deemed that man would learn the difference between good and bad. It gave humans something to measure their behavior by, and to recognize good from evil. Give them a celebration such as Christmas, and once more mankind finds its own way to celebrate.
The problem comes when we are no longer able to envisage Christmas and cannot relate to a baby being born in a stable, and the birth being so significant that Wise Men and shepherds followed a star which guided them towards Bethlehem. We are lost.
As the world evolved and became more materialistic, suddenly Christmas wasn't about anything spiritual, and the message began to play in the background, rather than having a major role in the celebration. We forgot the joy of the voice that sings Silent Night. We forgot that those innocent children who play in nativity plays still believe in a very spiritual part of what Christmas is all about, simply because they haven't lost the innocence of belief in all things good. We introduced the story of St. Nicholas, and turned him into a fat guy in a red costume with a white beard, who stands on every street corner shouting "Happy Christmas" and offered photo opportunities in all toy stores, where parents fight for the latest toys, advertised on TV.
Christmas became about profit. It became about business and wanting. Sometimes the message is so obscured by society's interpretation of it that something more valuable than the latest Wii game is so near to becoming lost. Our spirituality hides behind a facade of spending, credit cards and demanding family members, when really what it should mean is joy, harmony and a different kind of giving altogether.
It is simple to see why Christmas lost its spirituality to many, though also very sad. This article is written by a believer in the message of Christmas and a very saddened one who thought that demonstration of human stupidity may lead to a little more harmony and understanding that makes people digest what they are doing with belief, instead of concentrating on digesting the largest turkey in the stores.
A homeless man with no money once stopped me at Christmas and I automatically assumed he was begging, dismissing him with a nonchalant expression on my face, and not taking time to see that here was a man offering me something more valuable than all of those gifts wrapped in fine paper that sat beneath my Christmas tree. "I wanted to wish you a Happy Christmas", he said and his voice was sincere. I had assumed he was begging and had dismissed any contact with him, ruling him out as being less of a person than I was because of the manner in which he was dressed.
A week later, that man still stood there on a street corner and I watched him. Unsure of why I did so, I was fascinated by the twinkle in his eye. He was watching the choir from the church standing on the pavement singing carols, his eyes touched by tears of joy. He had nothing. There were no gifts waiting for him, and nor was he the holder of a credit card or material possessions. Yet, he had more within his soul than I did.
We lost touch with spirituality when we forgot that spirituality sustains us and makes us whole, and replaced that with the need to possess things. The humbling experience stopped me in my tracks, and made me appreciate the lesson taught by a man with no home, friends or family. That lesson was that spirituality is within us if we allow it to be. If we put our belief in good before our belief in possessions as a priority in our lives, it opens up a whole world of discovery of we, as human beings, fit into the whole order of life, and that's where true spirituality lies.
A man with no home taught me what spirituality was without even speaking. His eyes and the depth of feeling within them shamed me. If we can all recognize that sparkle of hope that Jesus gave us, and reflect it in our lives, perhaps spirituality will return, and still be there long after the Christmas tree is taken down, and the Xbox has lost its appeal.