Dear Friends in Christ,
It is Advent, the season of expectant waiting, when we prepare ourselves to once more receive the Good News that God loves us so much, God freely chose to take on our human form and share our common lot. I look forward, along with many others, to the occasion for gift giving, cookie baking, tree trimming and all our other customs that celebrate the season. And I still never lose sight of the fact that, at bottom, Christmas is about the incarnation, about the transcendent God deciding to become a human being, to have experiences of hunger, happiness, rejection, and friendship, just like one of us.
The First Coming, by Madeleine L’Engle
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
In the history of Christ followers, a lot of ink and even blood has been spilt over details of theological debate, including whether we need to take seriously this question of what it means for God to take on human form. But if Christmas has any meaning, I think it is to celebrate that very thing – that the creative force in the universe, the divine spark, recognized a need within the life it had created. It recognized a question for meaning and purpose, for a sense of hope in the face of all that challenges hope, and a sense of connection to the source of life itself, when life as we know it so often makes us feel cut off from the source.
He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
Fuhara, 30, with her fifth child, Alexis,
flees violence in the DRC, Nov. 2022
Madeleine L’Engle was not only a novelist, poet and actress. She also read physics (Einstein and his contemporaries) in her quest to understand and hew meaning from life as she encountered it, a life of some advantages but none that spared her personal challenges, even tragedy. What she made from what she was given reflects her commitment to respond to God’s initiative in coming into our lives by returning the favor, which requires allowing ourselves to be stirred into action that demonstrates God is alive among us and can be active through us.
This Christmas, I invite you to move closer to the manger. Let the light shining over it and through it become the glint in your own eyes. Let the warmth of a baby held close by its mother melt your own heart, until you feel the embrace of the One who loves us all. And knowing that you, along with others, have been personally invited to greet this newborn once again, go out into the world renewed to serve.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
May all your Christmases be bright,
Michael
Photo Sources
https://cropper.watch.aetnd.com/cdn.watch.aetnd.com/sites/2/2017/06/battle-of-the-somme-1.jpg?w=1200
https://www.msf.org/north-kivu-tens-thousands-people-fleeing-violence-urgently-need-aid
From the Minister of Faith Formation
Dear Beloved of God,
Welcome to Advent – the season of waiting and expectation; of rituals and traditions; of concert and dance performances; of gift giving and receiving; of journeying to Bethlehem.
In her meditation the Present of Presence1, Joyce Rupp, a Sister of Saint Mary, poet, international retreat leader and Christian spiritualist, states that Advent is a good season to be more deliberate in sharing the present of our presence every day. That presence is the loving presence of Jesus, sent as a gift by God into the world over 2000 years ago, that lives within each person. It is often referred to as the essence of God or the spark of the Divine within all. Jesus, throughout his life offered his presence in acts of healing, prayer, justice, compassion, forgiveness, dignity, love and more.
Joyce admits that sharing presence in a hurried and cultural environment that encourages us to be as busy as possible so that we will be rich, successful, important, and able to purchase more things and this time of year, “the Christmas rush” is difficult. She suggests two possible ways to be with someone: (a) physically or (b) “in spirit” by deliberately sending prayer, compassionate thoughts and kind feelings toward another person or group. Many of the twenty-five generic examples she lists in her meditation comprise the sections of the In Our Prayer list in our weekly bulletin and in our Pastoral Prayer on Sunday morning. Others include: a person who gives us hope, a person who has helped us grow, someone we dislike, a farmer losing their land, a coworker, those imprisoned, our loved ones…I am sure each of you have suggestions you could add. Perhaps the weekly Advent themes of hope, peace, love, and joy might be the focus for a gift of presence for someone exuding from the essence of the love that exists in each of us.
Gunilla Norris, poet, author of children’s books as well as multiple books pertaining to the practice of spiritual awareness in our daily activities, terms this gift of being present as “with-dom,” a practice that could become a holy ritual if we focused on someone for a minute or two each day.
Prayer:
Holy One, this Advent, whether we practice the gift of presence or with-dom, physically or spiritually, may we be attentive as we journey yet again to Bethlehem, to the sharing and gifting of God’s loving presence within each of us to someone else. Amen.
Blessings of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love this Advent Season to all of you.
Deb
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