Giving Thanks

Resting in Emptiness more and more in the last few days.

Thanskgiving is my favorite holiday. I love how it has never been commercialized in the way Christmas has.

I detest the notion of gift giving on Christmas. The entire point of giving a gift is that it is freely done, a spur of the moment thing, for the sheer joy. The fact that we are socialized into giving gifts defeats the whole purpose. How can there can be institutionalized, merchanized spontaneity?

By attempting to generate thankfulness out of gift giving, Christmas only ends up admitting how lacking, how needy we all truly are.

The needniness element of Christmas is inherent to the holiday, it is just wrongly aimed when it comes to the consumerist secular dominant social model we have for the holiday. Christmas is a Christianized version of the indigenous ritual of the Mithraic cult. Mithras, God of the Sun, who go into his lowest point on Christmas. Christmas (Winter Solistice) marks the utter descent of the Light, of the Good, into darkness. But for that reason it is the most hopeful moment, for the dawn begins to shine only after the darkness has reached its apogee. From that moment on, the momentum has turned towards enlightenment.

We are needy at Christmas. We are needy for the Light, for the truth, to be ultimately embraced by the Divine.

Thanksgiving represents the ultimate spiritual value of gratitude much better. We give out of our emptiness and abudance. We share a meal together, we those we love. No gits, no recognition that we are needy. We simply share out of the bounty given us, and expres gratitude for what we already have--what is always already the case. Love, relationships, belonging, food, care, joy, history, connections. The stuff of life. Empty and overflowing. The true wisdom of Christiantiy, manifested in a secular holiday, while our religiuos holiday has become secularized and no longer teaches us anything.