JoAnn was very sweet, but very firm, as she always is. She had ordered a new shirt and pants for me for Christmas, but the parcel arrived early. So she gave me a choice. I could start wearing my new clothes right away — which is the choice I made — or I could save the present until Christmas and open it then.

“Don’t forget, you won’t be getting anything else from me at Christmas,” she reminds me every now and again. “Of course not,” I say indignantly.

It’s fun giving gifts at Christmas. It’s fun receiving gifts, too, especially when you are little. But as another Christmas rolls around, I think to myself that any gift we receive — or give — this season will sooner or later break down, or lose its luster. It may simply wear out, like my new shirt and pants. Or it may simply lose its appeal, its novelty.

There is one gift, however, that will never wear out, or break own – and it is the gift of our own timeless being, untouched and untroubled by any of the vicissitudes of our lives.

As I sit down to concoct a new post this morning, I am filled with awe and thankfulness for this magnificent gift that is the true spiritual heritage of each one of us.

It asks so little. It gives so much. It is eternal love, and it asks simply that we be still for a moment.

I find that as I am still, surrendering my human preoccupations and thoughts, I become increasingly aware of the vast presence within which my physical form is contained and within which all life is contained.

Every atom of my body rejoices in this presence. It is not separate from me. It is myself. It is my own true nature, my own true character, crying out for expression through me.

It is already happy. It is already free.

May this Christmas be truly different. May it be NEW, because as you and I go about our lives, doing the little deeds that need to be done each day, we remember the gift that has been given us – so priceless it cannot really be named.

The one gift that will never lose its luster is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age