With a little help from my friends...

Since I was a young girl, I've always had trouble asking for help. Trouble with homework? No, I'll handle it. Trying to move a chair? Nope, I can do it. To this day, I have trouble admitting when I need help.

It's so....revealing.

You see, I'm supposed to be an expert on everything. Have a question? I can find the answer. Need assistance finishing something? I can provide it or know who can. Have an obscure or trivial thought? I probably know it's origin!

My strength comes from independence and self-reliance - I CAN DO IT (she says as she rolls up her sleeves in a Rosy the Riveter pose). I not only don't need anybody to help me, dagnabbit, I can save their bacon too (even if it's only in Trivial Pursuit).

Go figure - I'm a know it all. Not.

This year has provided some of my biggest lessons. Being vulnerable. Asking for help. Squirming less and smiling more as I reach out my hand to take instead of give. Saying thank you. Submission.

Tomorrow I go in for surgery and will be vulnerable and needy for quite some time. Instead of feeling incomplete, missing vital parts of what makes me strong, I'll be strong in a different way - strong through submitting to the present - the here and now instead of the should be and has been. I'll gain strength by being in the moment, learning how to be interdependent instead of independent.

I'll be stepping out of this blog for a little while during my recovery. I've asked some good friends to fill in while I'm out and provide you their perspective on this journey we share together.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter and touch base with me while I recover. I'll be back in a few weeks.

Lord, thank you for my dear, sweet friends, rooting for my full recovery. Thank you for this beautiful web of interconnectedness in which we touch each other's souls. Over the next weeks, keep me cradled in your hands and blow your healing breath across my body and soul that I may heal in all ways. Thank you.

Majeeda Rosa

Magic or Materialism?

This morning, my usual cashier and I exchanged Christmas greetings when I pulled up to the Starbucks drive through. She told me that she and her boyfriend were having a contest to see who would get the most presents.

At lunch time, I drove past the mall and was dismayed by the honking congestion three lanes deep. Drivers disregarded the lights and parked in the intersections while a man on the corner held a scrap of cardboard that read, “PLEASE can U help.”

When did Christmas become an obscenity? What is it about this compulsion called Christmas that leads to guilt and anxiety, for families to fight over expectations, for people to go into debt and throw up their hands cursing the whole business?

Where’s the magic?

Dear Lord, PLEASE can U help?

Stop. Listen. What does my heart say?

I enjoy Christmas best when I remember why I celebrate it, not just as a time representing the birth of Christ, but as a time to celebrate Hope and the true nature within our soul – Love and Joy. We, ourselves, are the true magic of Christmas.

Each time we celebrate a holiday tradition, corny or classy, we celebrate the Love that brings us together. When we break our routine to do something different, whether singing songs with friends or decorating our houses with lights, we’re making magic. When we give a gift to each other, the gift is actually our heart wrapped up in pretty paper, vulnerable and open. Magic.

Beloved, thank you for this time of year when we look through the cracks of our normal life and see You within us.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Majeeda Rosa