Santa Claus is such a shining, life-filled, positive, wonderful symbol of light! "Innocence and love incarnated!" joyful celebrants at a Christmas gathering might say to each other as they think of Santa. Yet little children beginning to wonder if they really are always innocent keep Santa in mind when they listen inside themselves to know what is naughty or nice. "The embodiment of giving and caring, the personification of happy morality!" pleased parents might whisper with delight to each other as they watch Santa's wondrous affect on their children.

From a very different world, a world of such immense pain and life-draining cynicism that true celebration and delight are impossible, we hear the desperate beseeching of writers and producers who have come forth with yet another attempt to submerge the foundation of any morals we have heard inside by flooding our minds with perversion ... this time with a stench-filled moral swamp of a movie named "Bad Santa."

In this movie, written by some cowering "anonymous," a mall Santa is portrayed as an alcoholic, thieving, lusting, sexually depraved "corroding the bottom of the barrel" kind of guy. But we are told it's nothing more than good dirty "adult" fun. We are told that such a portrayal is okay because the movie is not quite X-rated and all its advertisements are stamped with the warning "adults only," so kids will never see it anyway.

Never mind that the real purpose of art is to portray life as bigger than life; to portray life as it can be and should be, so people will be inspired and moved to reach ever higher. This is a different story, we are told.

It has been argued nonchalantly by the makers of "Bad Santa" that you could always see it as something similar to a "Touched By An Angel" type conversion story ... after all, at the end of the movie Santa undergoes a slight shift toward seeing the real meaning of Christmas. Their argument doesn't ring sincere. The movie Santa's so-called "conversion" is meager and miniscule in comparison to the movie's low-minded shock value as a cheap sucker punch at any moral foundation we may have heard from our inner hearing.

Meanwhile professional movie reviewers, who are in a position to be guardians of great symbols of our deepest values, remain silent. Sean P. Means, movie columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, wrote before he even saw the movie "I'll tell you now: it's raunchy, but it's funny." Does anyone detect an abdication of responsibility in such a statement? Have we been reduced to saying that anything goes as long as it can be called "funny?" That seems to be the goal.

Which brings us to a question worth pondering this Christmas season. Since we learn in A Course in Miracles that the entire earthly experience is an illusion, why would any Miracles student ever take a stand on earth in favor of what most Christians would call "moral values?" If Jesus tells us in A Course in Miracles that "good" or "bad" are illusions, then what could "moral values" possibly mean?

Does the Holy Spirit have values?

Trick question, wouldn't you say?

After all, it would be easy for a user of A Course in Miracles to answer: "Well, the Holy Spirit sees everything as perfect, just as it should be."

As true as such an answer would be, we also note that A Course in Miracles was given to the earth not for no reason. Surely the Holy Spirit could have said something like, "Everything is just exactly as it should be," and leave it at that. But that's not what Jesus did. Instead we can imagine Him saying something like, "Yes, everything is just exactly as it should be ... and I'm still going to give A Course in Miracles."

As you can see if you consider the dictation of A Course in Miracles, the Holy Spirit answers calls for help, works to relieve suffering and bring about healing, conspires to make earth life better, and inspires to open us to experiences of breathtakingly staggering joy and love we couldn't have imagined possible.

Does the Holy Spirit have values? You bet! Does the Holy Spirit abdicate responsibility? Not in the least!

If you listen inside and hear the Holy Spirit's guidance, what you are hearing is values, ideals, integrity, responsibility, morals ... wouldn't you say?

Even though everything is just exactly as it should be, the Holy Spirit does not leave us valueless.

The Holy Spirit's underlying value has many names, but for our Christmas meditation let's call it life. Not life in the sense of "this body drinks and swears and steals and does raunchy things sexually, therefore it must be alive" ... but life in a gigantically broader and far more sacred sense.

There is life available even on earth that Hollywood would not even be able to imagine. Santa Claus represents life as we haven't even yet come to experience it. Most of Hollywood doesn't have an inkling!

Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, the farthest-most reach of our crown chakra. He comes down from above to give gifts to everyone on earth. He comes down the chimney, which is the connecting channel of all our chakras, and in the process "lights up the tree" of our spiritual nature so that we experience ourselves as beautiful glowing beings not really of this earth.

Santa is pure joy and brings pure joy. In sessions, when we allow Him to come down the chimney into our house we find ourselves laughing so joyously that sometimes it is difficult to pull ourselves back into an earthly control that almost seems ludicrous.

When Santa comes down the chimney we find ourselves speechless with love for any and all, since Santa is the essence of love. Santa lights up our heart into a glowing flaming chariot of fire so explosive that our heart seems outside our body radiating everywhere.

Santa represents life as it should be ... jolly ... glowing with inner peace ... twinkling with the mirth of a happy secret ... large with never ending satisfaction.

We've heard some Christians complain: "Christmas is really about Jesus Christ, not about Santa Claus!" If they only knew! Shall we tell them that Jesus and Santa are one and the same? Shall we tell them that Jesus ascended from the earth to become Santa Claus?

Other Christians have said: "Santa giving gifts is alright. But the commercialization of Christmas is downright evil!" Really? Shall we tell them that Jesus loves the opening that occurs in people's hearts when they make joyous voluntary choices in the marketplace? Shall we tell them that people happily buying and selling goods in the name of Santa Claus might just as well be a form of prayer in the name of Jesus Christ?

Do we dare tell Christians and commercializers and movie goers and depraved movie producers alike that Santa Claus is in charge of the whole illusion anyway?

We did hear one story of a youngster who got into the movie despite the "adults only" warnings. When questioned about his reaction to the movie he laughed a secret laugh. "What did you think was so funny," he was asked. His answer was innocence itself: "That's not what Santa is really like!"

This Christmas season let's become like little children and remind ourselves what Christmas is really all about. It's about life! It's about life in enormous fullness and wonder! It's about life so generous and overflowing with love and joy we can hardly see straight. It's about life a billion times brighter and bigger and more amazing and magnificent than we might yet have chosen to experience. But it's here, right inside of us.

Santa Claus is helping us to experience it, wouldn't you say?

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HOLY INSTANT CHRISTIAN CHURCH

MIRACLES HEALING CENTER