Customs traditions are found in something an the wonder of the simple symbolic gesture of exchanging wedding rings. These enchanted symbolic gestures have the effect of captivating our imaginations through seemingly magical spiritual powers. These rituals that can unite us, or divide us through fear depending on the spirit connected to them. With the touch of God these unknown mysteries have the ability to build communities of faith and belief. They can engender enough faith and belief to happily enmesh us in a spiritual village atmosphere, and tune us into the timeless customs traditions that bring communal peace and order, with our selves each other and God. They can enmesh us in the miraculous life or they can have us regress into religiosity through fear.
 
These days we have a more detailed map of the scientific empirical material world in which we live. Many also have attempted to find God in Nature and the world of the senses, in the big picture of this empirical world. But we have only begun to understand or venture into the full wonder of this enchanted world God has created for us? Awakening our spirit means awakening our connections to God and the eternal victory that awaits us. Understanding customs traditions play an integral role in transcending.

Today spirituality and religion are almost contradictory terms for good reason. Religion is most often dead while spirituality is with us always. One way to think of religion in a positive sense however is described in the book of James, and the directive to look after widows and orphans. For good reason we tend to associate the heartless following of rules and doctrine with religion today, but there is a way to bring back the spirit of traditions like Christmas without the religiosity.

By respecting following the customs traditions that source themselves in the true spirit, we can reestablish a sense of community, harmony and enchantment God always wanted us to have. Seeing orphans and widows as part of a family bond, worth protecting is a good place to start.  Sometimes however we think have such a good sense of right and wrong that we make this sense of right and wrong into a religion. These customs and traditions become a new type of religion which is dead when we turn them into measurable units of Christian-ness.

There is little point of regressing back to a pre-modern view of the world where we fear and attack the unknown Ogre of the unlimited with our pitchforks. It's time to establish new customs and traditions that embrace the future with optimism. Syncretism and the call for a universal religion does little to restore the wonder of celebration found in the Spiritual essence of culture and traditions. Christmass is an example of this this syncretism of meshing Christian faith and pagan mythology that has done little for the integrity of ether tradition.


Then to fully activate the enchanting power we may have to do some work in contextualizing the original essence to the particular audience. This means accepting the eternal truths of the custom, along with the subjective truthfulness as it speaks at a more personal level. History and universal principles show us the value in taking the middle path to restoration of Joyousness. The right and left paths here in this chart represent elements of traditions which are currently disassociating themselves with each other at the end of the modern age. When they unite then we will have a Christmass tradition once again speaks the Joy of Christmass which is relevant to our time and place. 

Left path: Individual Subjective More and less truthful interpretations of Christmas. Concerned with the intent. Multiple Perspectives May have issues with deceptions. May think Christmas is only about their individual experiences and become self centered. Otherwise may uncover a spiritual personal meaning to each Christmass.	The Middle Path if the Goal is to unite perspectives and bring back the Christmas Spirit than the goal is to unite the perspectives into one whole.	Right path: Individual:Objective strives for singular view of truth. Concern for the exteriors world and what is measurable through empirical means. Issues with lack of faith and reducing God/Christmass to a material reality. The behaviors we show that make up Christmass. Christmas is about the giving of presents.
Interpretation of the bible is personal. Christmas is a time I consider the implications of Christ dying on the cross for us all. I am effected by this.	Solutions that contains both <--perspectives--> are ideal	Christmas and the gospel.The Holy Spirit at work in us is only evident through the evidence of spiritual fruits.
Interpretation with the help of the holy spirit aids our interpretation of the great sacrifice. What does the spirit tell about Christmass. <--Correct----Incorrect--->	Through the cross Jesus' Sacrifice became the Symbol of Christmas	The Bible - Evident in the Black and white text of it- usually in English. Without interpretation this death makes little sense.
Lower Left: Collective: inter-subjective Interpretation of the community of Faith and Belief <--Correct----Incorrect--->	When we unite the right and left aspects.The Holy Spirit, God, Christ is working in us all.	Lower Right: Collective: The Community of Faith and Belief- evident in the carrying out the great commission
Christmas is a cultural activity that I share with my loved ones. We all enjoy our time of sharing and communion with each other and the holy spirit as we know and have interpreted from the the great inter-textual analysis of the bible. Listen to the the Emergent Church Christmas for this perspective <--Correct----Incorrect--->	The Bible/ Word	Christmass is an observable celebration that has a social function that has a place. Societies follow the procedures set out in the bible.
We are overwhelmed by the  sacrifice that has been made on our behalf. Our faith allows us to trust in the truthfulness of the Gospel accounts. We are disgraced at the unjust treatment of Jesus.  <--Correct----Incorrect--->	The Community of Faith and Belief	Christmas is the 25th of December every year. It is celebrated in many countries all over the world. It has many correlates with other social religious activities.

After reading A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber I decided to put my self at work in coming up with a table. This is my first attempt at putting his ideas into use.


The Christmas spirit problem is the problem of what to do with the egocentric,  monster of an imbalance that is stealing the focus of a once enchanted and magical time. The answer is not then in moving camp entirely to the left path but to find the balance and transformation within ourselves that to overcome. When we unify the perspectives like this we become bigger, more evolved spiritual individuals with the capacity to overcome and assist our communities and societies. Then we can begin to map the observable results through the right hand paths.

Purple: customs traditions

In Spiral Dynamics the color purple is about a very early stage in spiritual evolution. There is little recognition yet of the oneness of spirit or a belief in the One true God but instead a strong emphasis on keeping the gods happy. It is kind of like a superstition. Think of your ancient gods of fertility or doing of rituals to keep the spirit world appeased. But there are positive aspects to this MEME. In the Old Testament there are a lot of examples of bringing the tithes and burnt offerings the temple. This was often done to honor God. And In honoring God some protection for our families is provided. It is the simple way of seeing a direct relationship with how we show honor to God, and the effect that this will have on our little clan. Customs and traditions, Family bonds and their protection are especially important at this level of spirituality. It is a simple, relatively shallow, fearful way of seeing things from a time that we can thank God that we don't live in today. Well at least 99.9% of us. Imagine suffering a horrible burning at the stake simply because of your evolved state you were perceived as a devil.

Thinking	Characteristics	Structure	Decision Making	Education	Family	Community	Life Space	Comfort Zone
Magical Animistic WE - Past Stress Motivator Tradition	X--X --X--X I  I  I   I I  x x x  x  x  x x   x  x   x    x   x x   x x   x   x   x Circular Nepotism	Mystical spirit signs Clans and nests Powerful Elders Our People	Customs Council Shamans Clans collect spoils	Paternalistic to others Rituals and routines Passive learning Oral histories	Kinship Rites of passage Role relations Bloodlines to protect	Respect folks always Ethnicity is honorable Lets group alone	Old ways Superstitious Fearful Many spirits	Enchantment

See Spiral Dynamics on The Colors Page



Spiritual gift development: Miracles and leading: customs traditions

The creator loves the customs traditions that served the children (all of us, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Other). Through operation of the gifts of miracles God was able to bring supernatural comfort to restore families. These miracles showed how much affection God had for his people here on earth, and understanding of their love of their family and clan members. The Peoples everyday concerns and connections for those close to them are respected by God. This love is reflected in the miracles that Jesus enacted. Lepers, Romans, blind men, family members, children were healed by Jesus' miraculous healing power. As a leader Jesus showed all humanity this ability to heal through the power of the holy spirit and connection to the true God. These miracles took place in an environment of belief however. One  would wonder today if we as a global village have lost this ability to believe in the power of miraculous healing through spirit.

Some customs traditions do not serve the spirit but are only religion. For example; Jesus once threw over tables of the swindlers extorting money for the privilege of getting close to the temple of God. Jesus came to remove false religion and  dysfunctional customs traditions that don't serve.

Fruit of the spirit growth sign: Patience and perseverance: customs traditions

Building rituals, customs traditions into your life can bring renewal. Staying the spiritual journey will bring it's reward here on earth and eternally. There is amazing power in some customs traditions to bring about change. Writing down your goals is a great example of our abilities to attract things into our lives through regular and consistent use of customs traditions. Write them down and remember them regularly and watch how you have a mysterious ability to attract things into your life with patience and perseverance. We actually get what we ask for more than we realise but don't notice because we are too caught up in the troubles of the day. Our words have the power to bring life and death and do more often than we know.

The power of the holy spirit is multiplied through the use of customs traditions. When we become united with spirit our goals become unchanging and this power is multiplied again. How willing are you to become enchanted by the mystery of the holy spirit. Where do you sit in regard to being open to the power of the Spirit to change your life.

<---Fear Spirit, mystery, unknown other

Embrace Spirit, mystery, unknown other--->

Listen to some spirituals on Youtube to activate your sense of enchantment.




Heroes Spiritual Journey: customs traditions

Refusing to leave, the Heroine remains anchored to the the past ways and associations. A false humility and pride comes over the Hero that uses old dysfunctional bonds and connections as an excuse not to answer and peruse the spiritual adventure offered. Here the miraculous healing power of the spirit may intervene. Seeing or witnessing the leadership offered in the miraculous power of the spirit and it's compassion the Heroines heart finally turns to follow such leadership.

This is like the parable of the seeds. The seed lands on the ground but it doesn't take or like the ground that receives the seed and it takes but but is later choked by weeds. The lives of those who take the call and those who don't commit to the call are insanely different. This may depend on where your anchor is, do you fear what may happen to you in the spiritual realm, or what could happen to  you in the earthly realm. Forfeit the sweet musical call of creation and you may end up living a shallow materialistic dreams in your heart, but you will never know the true Joy of The fulfillment. Find out more.

To not not follow the heroes journey is to live a an empty vessel. Joseph Campbell in this clip gives an invitation for humanity to unite in this dream of looking out for our neighbor and their customs and traditions. Our Christian tradition requires the same adequate response as that offered by the First Nations Americans. Their customs and traditions can inform our Christianity as much as we let it.



Level Meaning: customs traditions

The need to hold on to the familiar clan ties, customs traditions overwhelms the ability to see the self or (the creator) in others. The challenge is to see others as part of creation and to use true religions customs traditions to reestablish an enchanted mystery of childish adventure into spirituality. All Gods children, all orphans and widows until we reunite with the creator.

Everyday issues for customs traditions
-prosperity customs traditions
-Spiritual Christian prosperity customs traditions
-finance customs traditions
-debt elimination customs traditions


The Process of Drama Skill: Leading through questions:customs traditions

Leading through questions.
7 types of questions to provide leadership in customs traditions.
Questioning customs traditions Spiritual Self growth and customs traditions