Born into the Family of God We Are
The Living Story of Christmas
In this Christophany advent and Christmas, we have engaged in the process of the birth of God-Being-Us. This brings us into a Christmas that is not solely about celebrating the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago. We enter a celebration as well of the ongoing and eternal birth of Christ.
Richard Rohr speaks well to this distinction,
“The historical Jesus was one man, and Christ is not his last name. The Christ includes the whole sweep of creation and history joined with him—and us too. We call this the Cosmic Christ. We ourselves are members of the Body of Christ and the Cosmic Christ, even though we are not the historical Jesus.”
Christophany is all about this “and us too.”
The Christmas story of Jesus invites us into mythos—a living story that goes deeper than the historical. It draws us into archetypal patterns in a personal and deeply relational way, not as just a narrative but through invitational symbols of journeys in life we all might walk through. As such, the story becomes a portal of meaning and participation. We inhabit it rather than hear it as a separate tale only about someone else.
In the mythic structure of consciousness, we are able to live this story in our hearts and being. This is what we have done throughout Advent, receiving the divine annunciation along with Mary, recognizing our divine lineage along with Jesus, integrating our divine and human nature in Christ, and being formed uniquely in our singular and personal participation from the womb of God, our Great Mother.
The Christ story of Christmas invites us into the eternal logos—living in our whole being. It draws us into the dynamic pattern and living structure of the whole cosmos. This story is deeper than a scientific explanation of the fundamental building blocks of life, the Big Bang, and an expanding universe. It is the Origin story of loving evolution. The great birthing process of joining heaven and earth, of bringing to bear the essential and eternal integration of the divine and material. Life divine. Divine vitality. Christ incarnation in all things—and us too.
Some of the dynamics of the story are the same, but the Christ portal takes us somewhere even further and deeper. There is still revelation, interconnection, integration, and vocation. We inhabit these dynamics in all of our structures of consciousness. Integrated and shining through our hearts, feet, heads, and wombs. In all the elemental forms of fire, earth, air, and water—as we have done throughout advent as well.
In Christ, we are born into the whole. Our whole being, the intertwinement of the divine/human/material. Raimon Panikkar refers to this fundamental pattern of things as cosmotheandrism.
This is the “whole-body” of whole-body mystical awakening. Our personal, communal, and cosmic being. The fullness of divine vitality present and being born in all things. And us too.
Our ongoing divine birth is the advent of spirit, the fifth element. This is no distant and unknown ether, but rather the living consciousness of God animating and inspiring our very being.
This is not a one-time event, a singular moment of birth. It is an eternal and ongoing natal arriving of Christ in us. Christ as us—and always evolving. And from Christ too we live, create, and birth forth ourselves, the Christophanies of today and tomorrow.
It’s likely we’ll need more than twelve days to celebrate and inhabit this Christmas story!
The Great Christophany Choir
Of course the great and joyous dynamic of this birth is that it is not just about one person. It’s not just about Jesus, and it’s not just about you. We are not alone in this Christophany. Far from it! We are born into a vast and beautiful chorale of God.
If we come from a culture that is highly individualistic, this can be all to easy to forget. We rely on ourselves doing what needs to be done, getting the task accomplished, and maybe even overly focusing on our singular part. All too often, in this day and age, the “I” so easily slips onto center stage.
Like a singer in a choir, we each want to offer our voice in the best way we can. We all must take up our part with care and great intention. And indeed, that was the core truth we focused on last week. It is crucial we find our voice and sing the song of our divine vocation—which at times will certainly include solos. Other times we’ll find ourselves in a duet. A trio. An ensemble. And always part of the immense cosmic choir of Christ singing forth the universe.
In a large choir, like this is, there are times when we rest from singing, letting the others carry the tune. Thank God it’s not all about us, nor all up to us alone. When we trust the choir, we can settle into our part and our place with ease and confidence. When we know we can stop to take a few breaths from time to time, our singing can then be even more inspired and inspirited.
Christophany—our manifestations of God’s light shining through—is always communal.
Our divine vocation—the “voicing” of who we truly are in our lives—is always part of a great chorus.
Joining the Family Business
To draw upon another communal metaphor, we are all also born into a family business.
Families can be tricky, as can family businesses!
Fortunately, the dynamics of this family of God are vast and deep. This “business” is not confined to institutional church or ministerial roles, nor bound to any false sacred/secular divides. We don’t have to squeeze ourselves into limited options and roles, or try to find a place in the business with a single trade that might not be for us.
In actuality, it’s completely the other way around. The family business of God is our Christophany.
It is about each of us living into and expressing the divine manifestations as incarnated in our particular and communal human being.
Our “job training” is all about discovering and inhabiting the deepest realities of who we truly are—the fundamental divine essence of our precious personhood—and growing into inhabiting that more fully in our lives. Finding and speaking with our “true voice.” Our Vocare. Our divine vocation.
Our “job description” is to speak and sing in the world in the ways that tap into and flow from our deepest divine/human identity. Charged with divine vitality. And inspired with the enlivening spark that comes from embracing the at-homeness of living in this way.
Being who we truly are, together, abiding in communion.
Becoming who we were meant to be, deepening in God.
And attending to the Beckoning of spirit, how we are called to live in divine participation with the loving evolution of all things.
This calling is tailored to the unique essence of each one of us, thought it takes different forms and shapes throughout our lives. It is always distinctly our own, but becomes more substantial and even more fulfilling when we find our place and fit in the communal. When we are not just solo contributors to the work, but a vital and integral part of the family business, working together with others in loving, serving, healing, and WeCreating the future.
Your & Our Christmas Story
How will you live your Christmas story today and tomorrow?
How will we live our Christ story of Christmas beyond these sacred twelve days?
Indeed, this is an eternal story for us to embrace in the here and now—and beyond time.
What that means is that we are always participating in the spirit of Christmas. The spirit is the consciousness of God being born again, ever and always, in the unique and particular substance of our lives, personally and communally.
Sometimes this is called “Christ consciousness,” which lives, moves, and has its being in the union of “All.” In the body of Christ, the “We” of communion expressed in many diverse groupings. And particularized in the precious personhood of “I.”
This is the great story of Christophany.
The greatest story ever told.
Our story of being part of the family. Of finding our place and our voice in the vast family of God we are.
What more could we hope to live for?
We live this story together—and it is lived throughout time everlasting.
The drawing together of heaven and earth. Rather, even, of heaven and the whole cosmos. The material and divine, interwoven and becoming more whole, ever and always.
The great eternal and sacred mystery of All, the divine vastness of the cosmic scale of God’s birthing. The expanse of all that is so far beyond our comprehension and our small singular self—this too is the nature of our divine birth in our Christ incarnation. The eternal logos lives too in us. And us too.
Even this is but a glimpse into the great and immense constellation of the infinite family of God we are.
The Cosmic Christ, born again this day. This moment. In the farthest galaxies and through the dimensions beyond our comprehension.
The universal Christophany glimmering in the night sky. As more and more lights appear in the darkness. Emerging seemingly from the void, but born out of the conceptions of spirit we create together. Yes, even us. WeCreating the light of Christ to be born forth in the days ahead.
The growing universal family of God, yes, We Are.
We live our Christ being in the field of belonging.
Enter more deeply into the family of God this Christmas season by joining for WeEvolve on Fridays at 10 am Central Time.
We will presence, attune, and engage together in the Christophanies being conceived, grown, and birthed in and through us.
Statement of WeCreating Authorship
This article was WeCreated with primary authoring from Luke Healy.
All of the wisdom, creativity, and spiritual emergence in ICN comes from the communal field of wisdom and spirit speaking in and through the “We.”
All text in this article is human-authored without the use of AI, according to our AI policy: 0 out of 10
All images and videos are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN