Holiday greetings, dear ones! I am forbidden by “political correctness” from saying Merry Christmas, so I won’t. ‘Tis the time of the year nonetheless when visions of gift giving and receiving bump sugar plums and other such seasonal confectionaries from our snug little heads. The symbolic reenactments of the three wise men bearing gifts of honor to the Christ child has become an orgy of one-upmanship and frantic efforts to complete shopping for the ever growing gift list before the fourth of July.

There is something obscene about receiving unseasonable gift catalogs in the mail while still wearing short pants and slathering on suntan lotion in one’s backyard. To say that the “holiday season” (dare I say Christmas?) brings financial salvation to retailers is a cliché that I choose not to expand on any further. Exchanging one kind of salvation for another is commonplace. What I do wish to convey is something different.

Eschewing the compulsion to bash the commercialization of the “holiday season,” I do wish to pose a few “vexing” questions. Why can’t we return to the message of the season as a message for the entire year? Why is it far easier to absorb ourselves in the relative ease of buying, decorating, and partying than to turn inward and make our own determination of whether or not we have been “good” (whatever that means) little boys and girls? Why is this not an occupation that absorbs us the other eleven months?

Before answering these stirring questions, allow me to provide a modicum of personal truth surrounding the topic of what in blazes is this “holiday season” about. First, I am not a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jew, Taoist, or anything else that starts with a capital letter. Second, I am not a basher of any philosophy that does start with a capital letter. To each your own as long as you have no intention of disemboweling or disenfranchising me because I choose not to believe in your particular capital letter dogma. Third, although not a Christian, I do believe in the message that Jesus delivered to the world of His time and that has endured well into our own.

(Note: “Christian” denotes to me membership in any sect that has a fixed way of looking at the teachings of Christ to the exclusion of other secular based, interpretations of His work. Really, one moment, it is a sin to eat meat on Friday, and the next day it is okay. Did God change his or her mind? Apparently, the Pope is infallible, but God is not. I do not mean to infer that I do not believe in the life of Christ or His message. I simply choose not to institutionalize or humanize what He had to say. Given the vagaries of multiple translations and time, His message still stands up quite well.)

Now, back to the whys. As I understand it, the message that Jesus brought to the world (and I might add it was not His exclusive message; others have said essentially the same thing in different ways) is simply a request that we look beyond who we are being and to consider others as well as ourselves as spiritual beings having a human existence. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” There is a powerful message in those five words. Let us look at them closely.

The first word is “love.” My personal truth around love is that love is a selfless acceptance of whatever someone (including oneself) or something is at that moment. We can never know what lessons are being brought forward for someone. We can be assured that the opportunities for lesson are occurring for everyone around us as well as for ourselves. Compassion is about accepting that others are going through their opportunities even though the circumstances may seem grim. To first love others in this context, we must first love ourselves. This is the trap that so many of us fall into. We love others conditionally because we love ourselves conditionally. To learn to love oneself unconditionally is the major lesson for us all. That one singular accomplishment opens all other doors.

The second word is “thy.” More that an archaic form of saying “your,” the usage of the word connotes ownership. I own my relationships with others. How I am being with my fellow humans is an expression of how I am experiencing my life. If you want to understand the nature of your lessons, simply look at how you regard other people. If you see someone whose behavior you judge as negative, then you are seeing your own negativity. This is another way of understanding that each of creates the quality of the relationships that we have with others.

Try this one out. The next time that you feel compelled to take on someone, remember that you are only expressing your anger and not because the other person is “making” you angry. The anger comes from you, not him. Now, with that in hand, shift your perception of the other person to being someone who is not hostile, rather another person who is struggling with his own lessons and is really not a butt head after all. You will see that person seem to change while it is really you who changed. This is the essence of compassion. Let us withdraw from the altar of Buttheadedness and seek new visions of self and others.

The third word is “neighbor.” The intent here is way beyond the folks who live next door. We are all neighbors on this planet, even people we have never met. The greatest opportunities occur with those with whom we have the most contact, and we can still have love and compassion for anyone who touches our lives. We are all linked one way or another. The air that you breathe contains molecules that passed through the lungs of Christ, the Buddha, Adolph Hitler, and about anyone else of whom you can think. That is one of the more superficial examples of connectedness. There are more profound ones as well, and I don’t want you scratching your heads to figure that out, not yet at least.

The fourth word is “as.” You might cleverly ask, “How is Vex going to make something out of that?” In my dictionary, the first definition of the word “as” is: “to the same amount or degree; equally.” Interesting. “Love thy neighbor as…” It is helpful to see a = sign instead of the word “as.” So, “Love thy neighbor =…” I wonder what comes next? Read on.

The last word is “thyself,” an archaic usage for “yourself.” This tells me once more that howsoever I love (accept) myself is not only how I will accept others but it also determines how much I can accept another. If my private and personal view of myself is that of an unworthy scumbag (of course I don’t think that the world sees me that way because I appear cool and hip, but down deep I know differently) then the best that others can appear to me is just a bunch of unworthy scumbags. How I see others, really see others, is how I privately see myself. Scary, huh?

The End

...Or is it? Has good ol’ Vex merely been engaging in some mental safe sex or is there really something more? I started this small literary journey as a “holiday season” message. Oh my, have I gone astray…a poor little lamb that has lost its way? Remember the whys from earlier? Now we shall come full circle. Since many of you have short attention spans, allow me to refresh the whys.

1. Why can’t we return to the message of the season as a message for the entire year?

2. Why is it far easier to absorb ourselves in the relative ease of buying, decorating, and partying than to turn inward and make our own determination of whether or not we have been “good” (whatever that means) little boys and girls?

3. Why is this not an occupation that absorbs us the other eleven months?

H. Vexson is a black sheep offspring of an established East Coast (USA) lineage that predates the Internet and who heavily invested in Xerox and Apple at the right time. After graduating from well-known ivy prep and collegiate institutions, he was struck in the head by a mallet in a polo match. Although his team did win, he experienced an epiphany, sold his ponies and the Bentley, and sallied westward to California. There he garnered some minor fame in establishing a chain of aromatherapy stores named Smell This, garnering him a small fortune and establishing independence from the East Coast Vexsons. Forsaking the family traditions of Republican conservatism, he is a Libertarian, writes bad poetry, and lives quite comfortably where he may view the ocean and the mountains as well as the poor souls going to and fro their "jobs." If you wish to have a personal communiqué forwarded to him, please do so in care of the Editor of this magazine.