True Change

A version of this essay first appeared in the May 23, 2021, Light Reading email. Light Reading is our regular Sunday email newsletter. If you would like to be on our Light Reading email list and recieve messages like this every Sunday, please send an email to info@christinst.org.

There's a story about a Buddhist monk who goes to a pizza place, and when the guy at the register asks what he wants, the monk says: "One with everything." The pie costs $12. The monk hands over a $20 bill, but the cashier just deposits the money without giving him any cash back. The monk asks for his change, and the cashier says: "Change must come from within."

Jokes aside, change is an important topic to consider in spirituality. Tales of transformation abound in folklore and mythology, which can provide a vital link to forgotten religious practices. In fact, some of the earliest images painted on cave walls depict transformations, human-animal hybrids, hinting at humanity's questioning, questing nature and desire to know what could be.

Transformation is the heightened understanding of simple change. One of the goals of spiritual practice is to realize that kind of change, a transformation of the simple, physical self into a metaphysical self, a heightened, complex and complete self. The process is most purely presented in the ancient practice of alchemy. If we only associate alchemy with greedy medieval mystics trying to get rich quick by turning lead into gold, we are selling it short.

Alchemy stretches back into antiquity. Its goal of turning base metal into gold was meant to reflect an occult and cosmic philosophy of comprehending, translating and perfecting human identity. Alchemy was not about material wealth. It was about overcoming material limitations and achieving spiritual perfection. Base metal represented the unenlightened self, and gold represented the ideal human self.

In our own spiritual practice, we call that enlightened and ideal human self Christ identity. That is the human identity available to us through the Godhead. Our complete identity as both created physical humans and perfect spiritual humans is found in Divinity, and we are corporeal reflections undergoing a process to achieve that true identity.

That the totality of our identity is reflected back at us from God is an indicator that, while we are like God, God is not like us. This is why the book of Genesis can state that humankind was created in God’s image, but the prophet Isaiah can observe that God's thoughts and ways are not humanity's thoughts and ways.

God is the cosmic mirror that reveals the entirety of creation, us included. We are one part of the greater complex of Divinity. This is vital to our spiritual practice and human existence, since it gives us both a means to comprehend God and a perfect image toward which we can strive. We recognize ourselves in that divine reflection as potential and perfection, the best image of our selves that we can pursue, the image that we are duty bound by spirit to pursue. The name of that pursuit is transformation, alchemy and change.

Change means "to become different," and that can give us pause. We might be afraid of change, or we might think that change is too much for us to handle. However, we might also be focusing on the wrong part of the concept. If we are too focused on "different," we can miss "to become." The change that results from spiritual practice is not something becoming different. Rather, it is something becoming.

What that changed identity becomes is not really different at all. Christ identity is no different from our own identity because it is the true and ideal identity that has been waiting for us. It is not new. It is simply something we are in the process of becoming.

All that we could be and should be is available for us to see in the Godhead and achieve in our lives. The positive aspects of Christ identity – awareness, compassion, satisfaction, peace – are already within. Realizing that identity only seems new to us because our vision is limited. From a cosmic perspective, our perfect identity has already been achieved precisely because it is waiting for us to achieve it. That's why the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, from a heightened vantage point, was able to so neatly state that what is has been before, and what is will be again. We are a continuum, and realizing our ideal self is the true goal of our spiritual practice.

Let us pray:

God of alchemical fire,
May we seek the bright glow of your Divine flame.
God of transformative light,
May we become aware of our capacity for wisdom, strength and peace.
God of ultimate destiny,
May we realize our True selves.
Amen.

Christmas Consciousness

The following letter was written by Hanna Jacob Doumette, the founder of The Christian Institute. It is both an invitation and an engagement of the Christmas season. It is a reminder that Christmas deserves serious consideration, even—if not especially—in trying times. Let us reflect on it this year:

CHRISTMAS CONSCIOUSNESS

In the heart of silence the night is transferring unto itself the glory of the day. Behold the Christ Star in the horizon of mystery and peace. Behold, the midnight sun is risen with light regenerative, with beauty resplendent.

It is the Christmas consciousness.

Heaven is revealing its kingdom. Love and peace are animating the nature of man. The hills of Bethlehem are flooded with radiant beams of transcendent light. Behold the mystery of rebirth.

It is a new day, sublime, redeeming. It is the joyous day of Christmas consciousness.

Angels are singing earth's good tidings. Men and shepherds are witnessing the drama of His birth—a mystery sublime, exalted. It is the triumph of Christ, shown in Jesus. It is the day of humanity—a Christmas consciousness.

Heaven and earth are rejoicing. Good-will to all the people. Night and day together are speaking the eternal word. Angels and men are singing the melody of deliverance. Shepherds and sheep are gazing upwards. It is heaven on earth, the day of the Lord. It is the birth of Jesus translating evolution. It is Christmas consciousness.

A son is born unto us today. The Christ is made manifest in our nature. Behold, the star of Bethlehem is translated to a sun of an eternal morning. Behold, the Lord lives and moves in His people.

The world is enjoying Christmas—Truth—consciousness. Within its zodiacal signs, power is tempered with love, love intermingles with goodness, and goodness is translated to brotherhood. Within its orbit, life is rendered an art of helpful, noble and happy giving.

To His Name we give reverently. It is the gift of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the Gift of spirit, mind and soul. Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men. Rejoice, it is a Christmas consciousness.

-HANNA JACOB DOUMETTE

Summer 2020 meetings at The Christian Institute canceled, including Sunday service and Mind Over Movies

Like many others across the state, we at The Christian Institute have been reviewing guidelines for reopening in the time of COVID-19. And, like some other organizations, we're finding it's preferable to stay largely closed for a while longer.

State guidelines for places of worship include physical distancing, face coverings and disinfection, a reduced number of congregants and attendees, and self-screening for employees and volunteers.

We are not currently set up to accommodate all those guidelines, and we will not open up until we are confident we can provide the community with a safe environment for worship, study and personal unfoldment in the months and years to come. The guidelines also recommend that places of worship conduct remote services, and that is how we intend to continue operating through the summer.

We will keep up our email newsletter Light Reading, which has been our Sunday message of spiritual and inspirational thought for the last couple of months. Thank you all for reading and for the feedback, and thank you for sticking with us in what has been an unusual, confusing and occasionally sobering time.

However, all in-person services and meetings at 1308 Second Street are still on hiatus, and will likely remain so throughout the summer. That means that Mind Over Movies, our regular summer film screening and discussion program, will also be canceled this year.

If you'd like to be put on the Light Reading emailing list, please email us at info@christinst.org. You can also email us at the same address or call us at (310) 394-4178 if you have any other questions. Stay safe and well.

Let There Be Light Reading

I've talked to a few people the last couple of weeks, and it sounds like a lot of us are being forced to deal with self-isolation in one way or another. For every person who is using this period as a time to binge their way through their streaming service backlog, there's someone else who's one “are you still watching?” away from going cabin-fever crazy.

The most surprising to me has been the reaction to the enforced order of work from home. People are struggling with it. Of course, some people, like contractors and auto mechanics, can't do their jobs at all unless they're on site. But those who can work from home are still finding problems. Sometimes it's frustratingly physical, like someone trying to oversee a cleaning crew from their kitchen table. Other times it's psychological, like someone who has discovered their workspace has invaded the sanctuary that used to be their home.

For me, the problem has been both spiritual and practical. How do you tend to your work at home when you work at a church? I approached solving this like a philosophical paradox, and I think I've come up with a solution.

A church is many things. It is a space to process life changing events, a source of moral education, a community center, and a place to be fed in soul and body. We often associate all of those things with a building, one that has a chapel, a classroom, a rec room and a kitchen. There have been some beautiful buildings that have had those rooms and provided those services. But at its core, a church is a group of people who share a metaphysical vision and a quest for the truth. A church can be found within the seekers inside the building, as well as within the building itself.

With that in mind, The Christian Institute is excited to launch an email newsletter: Light Reading. The phrase “light reading” has gotten a bad rap. Merriam-Webster defines it as: “something that is easy to read.” While this is no doubt based on the idea of light as something “having little weight” or “of little importance,” there are other understandings of the word.

Light can be something that brightens. We can always use a little more positivity, something that brightens the day, especially in dark times. For this reason, Light Reading will share news that uplifts while it informs, that does not stoke fear or harbor hatred, that is both psychologically and spiritually satisfying.

At the same time, Light Reading won't lack substance. Light is not about ignoring darkness. It's about illuminating it. After all, another understanding of light is that which erases darkness. In Plato's allegory of the cave, it was the light of the surface that, while initially blinding, gave the freed prisoner the ability to see what truly is. We want to shed light on the issues that matter the most: the eternal and the internal, the human and the divine.

That's what we want to do with Light Reading. We want to offer light that brightens and illuminates, spiritual light that lifts us through the week and gives us something to think about. If that sounds like what you'd like to read, reach out on our contact page and we'll be happy to add you to our email list. There is no more appropriate time of year to begin a study in light than Holy Week, and it will give us all something to look at while we're waiting to see each other again.

All Christian Institute Meetings Temporarily Canceled to Slow Spread of Coronavirus

At The Christian Institute, we have also been following news about coronavirus. Earlier this week, California public health officials suggested that non-essential gatherings should be canceled or limited to stop community spread of the virus.

For that reason, we have decided to suspend all services and meetings at 1308 Second Street in Santa Monica for the time being. We have not had any reported cases of coronavirus in our building or among our members, but we are canceling all meetings as a precaution. We will reassess the situation in April, so please watch this space for updates.

We are not alone. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has informed Catholics they don't have to go to mass for the next three weeks and that all nonessential meetings have been suspended. Other Los Angeles churches and temples are also canceling or limiting gatherings, and many local colleges, including Pepperdine, UCLA and Santa Monica College, have canceled in-person events and shifted to temporary online teaching.

This is a time to be informed, not afraid, so please check resources like the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health for updates on what you should know and how you can stay healthy. Be safe, be aware, and we hope to see you soon.

Mind Over Movies Summer 2019

As we prepare to enter the fifth year of screening and discussing movies at The Christian Institute, I think no one is more surprised than me that we're still going strong. Mind Over Movies is our free semiannual film program. Each summer, we screen films in the church's community classroom. Screenings are followed by a respectful roundtable discussion and audience Q&A, focusing on metaphysical themes and spiritual messages as much as cinematic merit. Over the years, we've screened everything from contemporary high concept movies and indie documentaries to silent films and foreign cult classics.

My co-host I began developing Mind Over Movies in the spring of 2015. We were ambitious, to say the least. Our goal was to screen a dozen films over the course of the summer and, based on the discussions after the films, write an essay every week illuminating each movie's philosophy. All that—run by a volunteer staff of two—while maintaining a complex social media and print journalism presence the entire time.

Needless to say, we have a more streamlined approach these days.

This July will be our fifth summer of screening and discussing movies. In keeping with our mission of spiritual education at The Christian Institute, we offer this program for free to the community. But we need your participation. After all, without you, Mind Over Movies would just be two guys adding their own commentary to a movie in a big dark room, and you can get that in any theater in the country whether you want it or not.

There are a number of ways you can participate. You can do it by being an active audience member, engaged in the screening and respectfully part of the discussion. Films are special at Mind Over Movies because they're live. Some of the films we've screened I've seen a dozen times before. Others I've only seen right before the program. Either way, I always see something different and learn something new when I watch them on a big screen and discuss them after with an audience.

You can also participate by donating. Even if the program is not as ambitious as it was at the beginning, it is still run by volunteers, and any money you give will go toward keeping the lights on and the projector running. And we will never charge for Mind Over Movies—so if we cannot afford to run it, it will simply disappear.

You can also participate with your presence. Swing by some Friday this summer and see what the program's about. Bring a friend. We don't mind. On the contrary, we'd love to see you in audience.

You can check the calendar on this website for more information on upcoming films, or you can follow Mind Over Movies on Facebook or Twitter to stay connected. To be on the Mind Over Movies emailing list, send an email to MindOverMoviesLA@gmail.com.

Time Is Not Territory

We've probably gotten used to it this year, so I think it's time to ask: What is the deal with daylight savings time? Why do we do it? Or maybe I should ask, why do we do it to ourselves? Who decided that we should get used to waking up at one hour, and then change it all up? And who had the audacity to suggest we should repeat it every six months?

The publicity behind the whole thing is that we get an extra hour of daylight as we head into spring, which is good for people who work the regular nine-to-five and—allegedly—it gives farmers an extra hour of sunshine with which to make hay. We spring ahead, we push four o'clock into five o'clock, and it appears as if we have a new hour of sunlight, as clean as virgin soil, waiting for us at the end of the day.

But with saying that, I think I've found a hole in the concept. If I understand things properly, the days already get longer as we slide into summer, so this seems less like an effort at improving our circumstances and more like an effort at fixing nature.

If we actually wanted to help ourselves, we should probably do something like spring ahead every year without falling back at all. That way, we'd extend the day over and over again, perhaps canceling out the next leap year in the process. Maybe the math wouldn't work out, but at least we'd feel like we were getting somewhere, rather than all this step-forward-step-backward stuff.

This year, daylight savings time coincided with the beginning of Lent, the season of the Christian calendar that leads us toward the Passion and all the stories that go with it. They're like fables or fairy tales when you think about them: the ride into Jerusalem on a donkey; the burst of anger in the Temple; the ear of an assailant miraculously healed in the Garden of Gethsemane; the pageantry of the Crucifixion; and, of course, the Resurrection.

What is the deal with the Resurrection? Perhaps, like daylight savings time, we may ask ourselves that. How are we supposed to understand something like Christ's Resurrection, particularly in the modern world where people don't rise from the dead on a regular basis?

Are we to understand it as a physical resurrection—a literal resurrection of the body, with the scars running up Christ's arms and down his side for doubting Thomas to touch? That's not a bad interpretation. It grants the Christian story a gravity and a reality for believers, like a solid historical point on the human timeline.

Are we to understand the Resurrection as a figurative resurrection, one that has its seat in folklore and myth-making? That's not a bad interpretation either. It maintains the history of the Christian story, of the genesis and evolution of its community. It also links the Christian story to the stories of other great religions of the world, allowing us to see their shared truth.

Perhaps there's a third way to understand it, an abstract way. The Resurrection is Platonic, about being brought back from the ignorance of death to the enlightenment of life, or even Gnostic, about dying to a false world and returning alive to a world of truth.

An abstract interpretation further aligns the Christian story with the great thinkers and schools of thought, the ones that have influenced the way that we experience and understand our reality and ourselves. Furthermore, it opens up the Christian story to us personally. The unbelievable becomes something we can comprehend, and what Christ did we can do, as long as we can grapple with the impossible so that it becomes possible in our lives.

But there's even another understanding of the Resurrection, and it's the most incredible understanding of them all. It's that all of those understandings are equally true at the same time. This is not waving them away as “it's all a matter of interpretation.” It's bigger than that. It's the ability to see the same phenomenon from different, coexisting vantage points.

For example, we can all agree that time is a construct. We can divide up the day and the night into hours or minutes or seconds, the same way that we can divide up the slow course of the Earth into weeks or months or centuries. But those hours are not really time. Hours are a useful way to comprehend time, but at the end of the day, time doesn't care what we call it.

Have you heard the phrase “map is not territory”? It comes from Science and Sanity, a book by Alfred Korzybski, a philosopher of language. The full quote is: “A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”

Our map of the territory is not the territory it represents. It can come close to the real thing, perhaps even very close, but a map will never be that territory it describes. However, while that description is not the real thing, it does not lack value as long as we can learn something from it.

Map is not territory. Time is not territory either. It's a counting of beats, whether it's the ticking hand of a clock or the pulse of every human heart. The first chapter of the book of Genesis gives us a cosmic vantage point to comprehend time and what it measures:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the Earth, the Earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a mighty wind swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and the darkness Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Time is a counting of beats that measures light and darkness, where the night ends and the light of day begins. But remember, time is not territory. It isn't even time. And time is not light, that elusive substance that slips between wave and particle and through our fingers into day and night and day again. Time is a map of that light.

In the creation story, light is many things. Light is the order of awareness, because when we see things for what they really are, everything is made clear in the light. Light is the awareness of creation, which is an awareness of the one who brought everything into being as we see the hand of the creator in the creation.

Light is also knowledge, because it is a dividing line between clarity and chaos, between the light of awareness and the darkness that was banished with the light of the new world. And finally, the definition of light is given directly: Light is good, and light is that which is good.

When we examine time, whether it's the past lives of holy men and women or our own futures, it's an opportunity to explore light, the goodness that we have seen and the goodness that we could be. When we explore with light, we banish the darkness of chaos and ignorance with order and understanding. But that light doesn't care what we call it or how we observe it. All that matters is that we see the light for what it is: light.

That means we can change the language we use to define the light—we can shift our focus by springing forward or falling back—but in doing so, all we are doing is understanding light a little differently, hopefully even a little better. That doesn't change what the light was and continues to be. It's all light. And it's all good.

Lent is not territory either. Our observation of Lent is not the same as Christ's Passion—what went into his mission or through his mind as he pulsed onward toward the Crucifixion and Resurrection. But Lent is a map of that territory. It's our way of discovering that territory every year.

Lent is a map of spiritual territory—perhaps well trod but always worth reevaluation. Lent shows us what has been, and Lent points at what could be, what we could be if we take on the humble mission, the compassionate spirit, the enlightened mind of Christ. Lent is a map of a beautiful country. Let's start exploring.

Revisiting Resolutions

How are we doing on our New Year's resolutions? Maybe it seems like it's a little early to ask, but a 2015 poll by the Marist College found that one month into the new year, about a third of people who made New Year's resolutions had stopped their efforts to lose weight, decrease spending and become better people. Six months into the year, the faithful resolutioners had dropped by more than half. So that's why I'm asking how we're doing in the middle of January. It seems like it's the safest time to ask.

I made a few resolutions myself, everything from write a novel and read the classics to stretch in the mornings and wear more sunscreen. I've actually been doing OK on the sunscreen one, but I've been less successful getting to the others. I'm telling myself that I need an adjustment period before I launch into better health and personal improvement. If I start too fast, I might hurt myself. So I am going to start writing the first chapter of my novel. I'm just going to do it tomorrow.

How do we end up failing to keep resolutions? And I don't just mean New Year's resolutions. Efforts to be better might sound a little louder on the first of January, but they should also sound familiar. We tell ourselves: I should walk more. I'll save gas and get exercise. Or, I should eat less junk food. I should leave the house earlier or more often. Or I shouldn't get so frustrated with things. I should try to see things from another perspective.

I believe that there are a couple of reasons why our resolutions to be better fail. One, which I think New Year's resolutions in particular are prone to, is the idea that we are still the same old people. For example, suppose I resolved to eat less sugar in the new year. At first, I'd cut out sodas and pastries, everything added and artificial and sweet. I'd be a genuine abstainer.

But then, I might be in a hurry one morning, and I would swap my regular breakfast of black coffee and a hard-boiled egg for a powdered sugar doughnut. But I'd tell myself, it's OK. It's just once. Then later, I'm at dinner party, and someone offers me dessert. And I would tell myself it was OK, it would be rude not to accept. The next thing you know, I'm hiding bags of jelly beans in laundry hampers. But that would be OK too, because those are there for hard days, and I've got it under control.

And then, when I've had a really hard day, I'd happen to see a cake on sale at the supermarket, and that will be it. I'd buy the cake, bring it home and sit down in front of it with a knife and fork. But even then, it would still be OK. Why? Because I'd tell myself that I'm no different now than I was last year. I'm still that guy, I've always been that guy, that cake-eating guy. That's just who I am. And then, I'd eat the cake.

There is truth to that. If I was that cake eating guy, I will have always had been that cake eating guy. I could change my ways, move to a new state and grow a mustache, but all that cake I ate will still have been eaten by me. And that can be demoralizing. If we start to think of our pasts as sticky, we are bound to get stuck. That's called falling back into bad habits.

It's somewhat comical when it's about cake, but it's less so when someone decides they just are that person who drinks too much or that person who loses their temper. That's when you don't just fall into bad habits—you can fall and hurt yourself and the people around you.

What can we do to avoid doing that? I stumbled upon a biblical suggestion. I say that I stumbled upon it because it comes from a passage that we don't typically associate with self-improvement.

In the sixth chapter of the gospel of Mark, Jesus instructed his disciples on their mission. The passage reads: “He said to them, 'Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.' So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.”

That passage is rightly understood to be Jesus' instructions for how his disciples should to conduct themselves in public—from how to heal to the clothes they should wear—which gives us a peek inside the workings of the early Christian church. But it's also clear that Jesus was speaking somewhat symbolically.

Shaking dust from one's feet was about more than personal hygiene. Religious scholars interpret it as responding to a host's hospitality, or lack thereof, but it has always been interpreted in the abstract—less about the dust itself and more about what it meant metaphorically.

So what happens when we apply that abstraction to ourselves? Can we shake our own dust from our own feet? How do we respond to the people we were in the past who were bad hosts, bad stewards of our spiritual selves? How do we respond to the people we were who were ignorant, who lacked control, who hurt more than they helped?

We do what Jesus told all his disciples to do. We stay as long as we need to in their presence, and then we shake their dust from our feet and leave. The people we were in the past will refuse to hear us—they cannot hear us—but we can hear them. We can learn from them, we can learn to be better than we once were, and then we can release the people we were and embrace the people we are to become.

Jesus was instructing his disciples to exist within the moment they existed, to stay in that place until they left. It was a call to be present, a call to be mindful, and it was a call to not remain in that place once they were no longer needed or in need, once they were no longer there.

But maybe we're having trouble getting started—maybe we're having trouble leaving that place and leaving behind that person. That's the other big problem with New Year's resolutions, especially if we're caught up in who we were. How can we release the old and then embrace the new? How can we begin being different? How can we begin being better?

That ancient Chinese saying about how the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step actually is an ancient Chinese saying. It comes from the Tao Te Ching, the collection of Taoist wisdom attributed to Lao Tsu, and my favorite rendition of it comes from the translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. It reads: “A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet.”

That's my favorite translation because I like that image—the journey that begins under one's feet. I like it because it indicates the journeyer is already on the journey because they are already on the road. It's under their feet.

Religion, a spiritual practice, offers us a number of tools that help us move toward our goals of personal improvement: moral guidelines to help us treat other people better; metaphysical focus to help us see what really matters; positive rituals to give us the discipline to replace old habits. But those tools cannot put us on the path to personal improvement because we're already there.

We're already on the path. We're on the path to being different. We're on the path to being better. Our journeys have already started. They started under our feet, under our sandals, while we were looking somewhere else. So we don't have to force ourselves to begin because we've already begun. All we have to do is to keep moving forward.

Toy Drive 2018

Considering where we were earlier this month, Southern Californians have a lot to be thankful for this week. The Woolsey Fire, which burned more than 150 square miles across Los Angeles and Ventura counties and took three lives, is almost completely contained. Thousands of people who were forced to evacuate are able to return to their homes and start the long process of putting things back together.

From national cable news stations to local media outlets that were in the heart of the blaze, images of the fire and its aftermath are everywhere. At the fire's peak, more than 250,000 people were displaced. Now that it's nearly contained, the number of buildings destroyed stands at 1,500. Even if we've only seen the pictures, perhaps we can imagine the heartache and sense of loss some are experiencing right now.

Christmas is a time when we're called upon to spread joy, so that's when the Christian Institute holds its annual toy drive for local children in need. This year, there is plenty of need in communities like Thousand Oaks, Malibu and more, so we'll be coordinating with local fire departments to make sure we meet that need as best we can. Not everyone who lost a home is a homeowner, and some were forced to flee in cribs and car seats.

From Monday, Nov. 26 to Wednesday, Dec. 19, we'll be accepting new, unwrapped toys and games for babies, toddlers and children. If you plan to donate, please deposit toys in either the red or silver box in our community classroom. Wrapped toys will not be accepted.

Remember, we're far from the only place taking donations. Local chapters of the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Humane Society and United Way, as well as the Los Angeles County Fire Department Foundation, have all pledged to help, and time or money donated to them will go toward healing the region after the fire.

The holiday season is usually coming to an end when we start passing out presents, but this year, consider beginning the season with a gift—whether its time spent volunteering or a toy dropped off for a child who's lost a home. It might not seem like much in the wake of the fire, but being remembered at Christmas always means something.