Christmas Blessings

On Friday, the office closed early for our annual Christmas luncheon.  Every year, my company throws a swanky celebration at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach.  It’s fun to see all of my coworkers looking so dapper and to have the opportunity to mix and mingle outside of the office setting.  It’s customary that the founders, CFO and CEO of the company give speeches each year during the celebration and while normally the speeches are full of hubris- this year one of them really got to me.  Our founder battled cancer this year, and that experience really humbled him.  In his speech he talked about family, faith and gratitude.  Unlike previous years, he no longer repeated the same greedy speech of wanting more money and expanding the company even more.  He spoke about his family, about us and even about God! At times, his voice sounded cracked like he was trying to hold back tears.  His realness really impressed me.  Sometimes it takes facing death to realize what really matters and to forget the social norms to openly talk about faith and God.  A lot of the time people in positions of power forget to appreciate the simple things and have this air of superiority- but death comes to all of us.  And whatever our social status in the eyes of God we are all equally worthy.  Thus, it was really inspiring to see the change in this man and to see God working in him.

People who have faced death in a really personal way are never the same again- that’s why Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is such a popular classic.   Scrooge faces his mortality and has the opportunity to change and God gives us that same opportunity every day- but a lot of the time we are so distracted with worldly things that it takes tragedy to help us focus on what really matters.  I was reading this horrible novel on mental illness- yet I learned something from reading a part of it and that is that people with mental disabilities see life differently.  The novel played with the idea that mental patients have a greater appreciation for life because they don’t worry about social norms.  They lead their lives according to their own standard of living and that makes them appear crazy to normal people.  I like that idea because I am bipolar and I do think that my disorder accompanied by the death of my brother really have influenced my way of life and the choices I have made since.  I try to live enjoying everything and everyone- and to shower people with God’s love no matter how sentimental and vulnerable that makes me.  A lot of the time we hide our feelings due to fear or pride- but when one encounters death and gets the opportunity to live a little longer God sets us free (if we are willing) to live a life of hope, truth and mushy love.