And on many levels, that Shift is intimately connected to what Christmas symbolizes for Christians: the birth of a new kind of consciousness in the form of a divine human.

Only we’ve created a little glitch in this ancient story, which Jesus himself didn’t advocate — the belief that he was the ONLY child of God.

I don’t believe that’s true.

I believe that we are ALL children of the Divine. ALL emissaries of grace. ALL messengers here to uplift the world.

Yes, we stumble and get lost. We can wander in the wilderness too long. We can hurt others. We can lose ourselves.

But at the deepest core of who we are, we are children of God and expressions of the love of the Universe.

Jesus is, in this view, less of a singular Messiah and more of an example to follow. A wayshower and revealer of truths that we already hold in our depths.

If we forget the magnificence deep within us, we tend to define ourselves in far too limited ways. We shrink into ill-fitting and often frustrating boxes. We see ourselves as small and ineffectual rather than capable of gloriousness, goodness, and acts of beauty and blessing.

I’ve sat in circles of high-security convicts and can say that I saw the light of the Divine in their eyes. I’ve facilitated workshops with recovering addicts and prostitutes, and the divine light is in them as well.

No matter how far we seem to fall, there is something incorruptible, beautiful, and sublime at our core.

Reconnecting with that spark is, for me, the essence of what Christmas is all about.

So as we enter into this time, thank you for showing up as a perfect expression of YOU, a unique note in a vast concerto of music that is indescribably vast, intricate, and beautiful.

There will never be another human precisely like you — even in billions of years of evolution.

Thank you for being a present to us all! And thank you for joining with us in an adventure of service, healing, and awakening through our shared work.

With love, Stephen Dinan