Who might you say was the leading character or the hero of the Christmas story? The Baby Jesus is an obvious candidate. It could be Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the angel, or the wise men. It occurs to me that, in some way, the manger itself was the hero.

Here was a young couple with an illegitimate child on the way, as it would have been seen by the culture of the day. It is likely that they were rejected because of that. And as the story goes, Jesus was subject to execution from the Roman king.

They went to Bethlehem to be taxed and could not find a place to stay—there was no room at the inn. And so, they ended up going to a manger, which was in a stable where animals were kept.

I see that as symbolic of how the Christ Spirit is born in each of us. It’s born in a lowly place; it’s born in a place where we share in the circle of life with all of nature. A stable is not a sophisticated place. But at a very profound, innate level, there is a connection through the heart with what is true and what is real. And so the Christ Spirit is born at the level of our innate connection through the heart. That is what the manger represents.

There is so much distraction in the world as it is. I took my puppy on a walk up in the hills this morning. I was in the surround of nature and could feel the beauty and serenity of it all. I began to think how the birth of the Christ doesn’t happen within the erratic energy of the world. It happens in the heart that is open, feeling the surround of the real world.

I’ve been considering recently Jesus’ remarkable teaching, Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. As far as I know, there is no other teaching around the world that so succinctly captures that truth that we see differently when our heart is open; we see the truth of what is present that we can’t see otherwise.

Seeing is an interesting matter. In Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s presentation this week of the articles of impeachment against the United States president, she made reference to the Founding Fathers’ of the United States reliance on Divine Providence. There is what is sometimes referred to as the Eye of Providence, the all-seeing eye on our American dollar bill, at the top of the pyramid. Of course, we’re not just talking about physical sight. We’re talking about the kind of sight that allows us to see all levels of Reality. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. They shall see Reality around them; they’ll see truth.

And why is that? When we come to the place of the manger, the place of an open heart, and the Christ comes through, we’re not just seeing with human eyes. We’re not just experiencing our life in the way that we have. We are seeing with the eyes of the Creator. We can imagine what God might see someplace else, around the universe, or up in heaven. But there is a magic that happens in our human experience when the heart cracks open and now we’re seeing with different eyes. Yes, our eyes, but somehow our eyes have taken on the qualities of the eyes of the Creator. There is the all-seeing eye. We see things that we hadn’t seen before.

For something to be truly seen, we are not simply witnessing what already is. Seeing is an act of Creation, as quantum physics tells us. The thing that is observed changes because it is observed. In some way, it is created in the act of witnessing it. That is the profound power of sight. Reality is constellating in consciousness. There is, presumably, something out there that we are seeing and observing, but where is it coming together? The meaning of it, the purpose of it, the reasonability of it, the truth of it, is coming together in consciousness. And it can’t come together in consciousness if the heart is disturbed and we’re seeing with the old human eyes. In that case, we are not seeing with the Eye of Providence that sees Reality and allows Reality to be created in consciousness.

At the end of the New Testament story, Pontius Pilate famously looks to Jesus and says, “What is truth?” The unenlightened human mind has no idea what truth is. There is a taxonomy of truth. There’s the truth that we learned as children—tell the truth—that has a lot to do with facts. Truth at that level suffers in human culture, particularly in this day when public figures lie about the facts. At this very basic level, truthfulness is acknowledging the facts of what happens.

At the most basic level of fact, there is the physical fact. But there are other levels of fact too. There is what is really happening in the heart. That’s a fact of a different nature. What are you really thinking? What is really happening for you? What’s really happening in this particular situation that’s more than a physical thing?

We are moving to higher levels of the taxonomy of truth because truth is more than just a physical fact. Truth is an understanding of something that is unfolding, that has logic and reason, and a pattern to it. Truth is about that pattern. When we see truth, we are seeing beauty. We are seeing God. We are seeing the unfoldment of Creation with the Creator in it, activating it. And that has a pattern. At a very practical level, if you are building a car, the truth is not only the physical parts of that car. The truth of a car is the design of it, and if you’re building or fixing that car you’d better know that design. And so it goes, whether you are talking about music or gardening or anything else we might think of. The community in which I live, Sunrise Ranch, is more than its factual reality. It’s the pattern of what’s here and its unfoldment.

Knowing the truth, seeing the truth, is not just seeing the facts. It’s seeing the pattern of what is unfolding. Truly seeing another person is not just seeing the fact of them. There’s more than the flesh that’s in front of you. There is more than what that person is currently experiencing. There is a deeper reality that is the character of that person, the life of that person, the destiny that is unfolding. If we see truth, we’re seeing that, are we not? We’re seeing with the all-seeing eye of understanding that sees more than just facts.

Truth is design and control—design relating to how things are laid out in space, and control relating to their unfoldment in time. I think of another level of truth, which is what is eternally true. There is not just what is unfolding now in the circumstances and the people around me, and the projects that I contribute to. There is what is eternally true: the eternal Reality of Being, the eternal Reality of who you are and who I am, that is bigger than any kind of momentary experience. When we’re opening up to Reality, we are not just opening up to something momentary. We’re opening up to something that is vast, eternal, infinite, and related to everything everywhere. The truth of a human being is something so simple and so foundational, which is that we are being activated by cosmic power and cosmic intelligence.

What is true is what really is. We might try to live into what we think should be or what we would like to be so. But what you would like to be can hide what really is. It might take some kind of leap of faith to know at a deep level that what is so is good. It doesn’t have to be made over as I would like it to be. What is so is good. And more than that, I get to participate in what is so.

What do we see when we see what is true? For us, as human beings, our experience is so often a huge muddle. There is so much that’s going on that the core Reality of what is there gets confused by a human consciousness that wishes something else were true. It is not seeing what is true. It is trying to make something true that isn’t, and is fighting what is, oftentimes, and is judging what is and saying it shouldn’t be. It is then imposing on Reality what that person thinks should happen. That’s human ignorance. So often, someone’s human darkness can cloud what is really there that is true. But no matter how much human darkness there is, there is something true in that person.

And the same is true in this culture in which we live. We can watch the news or just go to the local shopping center and feel like pulling our hair out. How did we get to this place? There is all this human ignorance. And yet, if you move past that, there is something else.

I had a remarkable experience yesterday. I was busy making a Facebook meme, and I was looking for an illustration of the Christmas story. There were so many illustrations that were plastic looking or filled with some kind of religious rigidity. And I finally found one. It was beautiful. The depiction of Mary was human. She really looked like a mother. The whole illustration was gorgeous. I was ready to put it all together with beautiful words about Christ consciousness and post it on Facebook.

And then I decided I wanted a better version of the illustration, one that had greater resolution. I found a collection from which it came. The artist was Adolph Hitler! I was shocked. The painting of the Madonna and Child was from 1913, before Hitler fought in World War I, and well before the atrocities of Nazi Germany. I looked at some of his other paintings. They too were beautiful. I’m not enough of an artist to say how good of an artist he was, but there was beauty there.

It breaks my heart to think that this creativity was present in that man, and then know how wrong it went—how human ignorance and his impure heart corrupted it all. That’s the human muddle in the extreme. But it isn’t just Adolph Hitler. The muddle is present in people everywhere and in our culture.

Where there is a pure heart and the all-seeing eye is operative through a person, they do see the muddle. Of course that’s no great feat. I think most people see the muddle; they even see a muddle where there’s not a muddle.

When there is a pure heart and the Eye of Providence is present, we see through the muddle and we see the truth of something else that is happening in the human experience. There it is, and it’s beautiful. There is the substance of Creation that has come together in a human being. And there is the power of Creation that’s working through consciousness, born from the Creator.

If we don’t truly see, we don’t play in that arena, and we don’t play that way with each other. We are just walking muddles. And how much of human experience is like that? Or do the powers of Creation move through consciousness for us individually, relative to the substance of our own humanity? And then they are not only moving through us but also moving powerfully back and forth between us.

That could be fun, couldn’t it? It is fun when it’s really happening. When we find a way to sideline the muddle, then here we are as Creator-beings and there is lightning flashing, creative power and genius working. And if you’re bringing it, I’m saying, Bring it on—I love that! Bring it on. How can I be of service to that? That is so exciting; that is so beautiful!

And if I’ve got it to bring, I’m bringing it. I’m bringing sight through the all-seeing eye. I’m bringing truth. I’m not just witnessing it, I’m bringing it. The ordering power of Creation is coming through me in an act of consciousness. In the act of being present, it’s coming. That’s how we create anything—at the same time we are witness to and bringers of the ordering pattern of Creation. And we have an opportunity, in reciprocity with one another, to both give and to receive that ordering pattern.

That doesn’t happen very much in a politically correct world. We’re all full of Don’t tell me what to do and I’ve got my boundaries and We are all equal here, and We’re all self-guided and self-motivated, and far be it from me to hear something from you that is directive or inspirational. And I don’t want to offend anyone. That’s not a world I want to live in!

I want to live in a world of courageous people who are courageous enough to bring their fire, their light, their wisdom, their vision, and their power of consciousness and Creation. I want to be with people who are courageous enough to receive it from another, and who are a lightning storm of Creation. All that delight unleashing the powerful forces of Creation, unleashing truth, not just as something to be seen and appreciated but unleashing truth as an active power of Creation that shapes and molds and motivates Creation itself. I want to live in a world where what you say and what you see, and the power with which you say it and bring it, matters to me and changes my life and affects my ability to create; and where what I see can be received and is meaningful and empowering and enlightening to others. I want to live in a world where we are going for it. I want to live in a kind and safe world, but not a cautious one.

It is human ignorance that creates the muddle and gets in the way of the dynamic of Creation within a person and between you and me.

Do you believe it’s true that we all live in some kind of energetic bubble, however you want to describe it—aura, prana, pneumaplasm, or some kind of energetic cloud? I believe it’s true for all of us. Some are like the cartoon character Pigpen, with a messy cloud surrounding them. There is some kind of energy field around us all.

When we bring our creative power, it’s vibrating through that cloud, and so we have the remarkable opportunity to allow for a blending of the clouds of energy that we share. And even though people are often quite guarded as they walk around during the day in their own little bubbles, it becomes exciting when we are conscious of what we are doing energetically with other people. Then that cloud of energy extends and blends with others. There becomes one cloud that we’re operating within, and we feel the rhythms of Creation working in that cloud. We contribute to that process, and we receive from it. We feel the artistry of the gift that we have to bring, and we are changed by the gifts of others.

I want to be in a world where we’re rocking that every day with each other, unleashing the very energy of Creation in our collective bubble; where we’re seeing God, not as some character up on a cloud but as the Creator and the power of Creation working in the Creation itself, in the cloud, in the substance, in the world, in consciousness, in culture. That is what’s happening. It’s happening because we are here—courageous, undaunted, with a pure heart—and because the Christ Spirit has been born in our own manger. No, there’s no room in the inn for this, but there’s room in the manger.

So this Christmas, when we see a crèche at the local church or when we see any of the icons of the Christmas story, let’s remember the birth of the Christ through ourselves. Let us come to the manger within and see with a pure heart, and therefore see with the Eye of Providence that sees us all.

As Tiny Tim said, “God bless us, every one.” God bless Sunrise Ranch. God bless Emissaries of Divine Light. God bless the United States of America. And God bless this world.