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Posts tagged ‘Christmas’

Dec 27

The Work of Christmas

“The Sabbath is the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization.”― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.”
― Howard Thurman

The work of Christmas.
To heal.
To feed.
To release.
To rebuild.
To bring peace.
To make music.
To be kind.
To be grateful.
To be generous.
To cast light.
To love.

“It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong and the powerful and against the weak and oppressed—this, despite the gospel.”― Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

Dec 26

Divine Graciousness

“Love is holy because it is like grace–the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“This is the homely heart of Incarnation, this meeting of God in man with men and women, this simple face of divine graciousness in ordinary life rather than in the hymns of church fathers or in the dry elaborations of theologians.”― Eugene Kennedy, The Joy of Being Human: Reflections for Every Day of the Year

Don’t rush off
Christmas is not over
It’s just begun
Linger and savor
Slow and absorb
Pause and praise
Sit, stay here
Open the gifts of grace, presence, reflection
A day becomes a season becomes an outlook becomes a way of life
Tides of Christmas
Love rushes in, remains, transforms.

“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.” – Kirstin Armstrong

Dec 25

Hope, Peace, Joy, Love Birthday

“God does not come to the curated, but to the crowded, the tired, the not-ready. God comes to us.” – Kate Bowler

“This is the culmination of everything Advent has taught us to hold.

Hope—that even in the world’s unfinishedness, God is not done yet.
Peace—not the absence of chaos but God’s presence in it.
Joy—not glittery optimism, but the stubborn delight that arrives anyway.
Love—not sentimental, but embodied in the form of a baby, dependent and vulnerable.

Christmas is God’s declaration that God will not remain distant. Love does not hover above the fray. Love is born into it: among animals and straw, political oppression and family scandal, the ordinary ache of human life. It is the good news that changes everything.” – Kate Bowler

Hope
Peace
Joy
Love

The real kind, not curated, fluffy, Instagram-able
In the heart, bones, mind, spirit
Right in the middle of unfinished, imperfection, messy, chaos, ordinary, beautiful days

Accept the invitation
In and for us.

“Blessed are we on this Christmas morning,
astonished again at Love made flesh.
Blessed are we who dare to believe:
God is here—
in the dark, in the ordinary,
in us, and for us.”

Dec 24

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World Tilting

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Advent was never about perfection. It was about preparation for Love to arrive in whatever space you have left. And here’s the good news: Love does not check your to-do list before showing up. Love comes to the unfinished, the unwrapped, the undone.” – Kate Bowler

Love
Entering in a stable
Good news
Love has arrived, still arrives, remains
Alive, near as breath, ever-present
Palpable, transformational, for all
Weary world rejoices
Lean forward in awe and wonder
Enter the mystery
Oh, Holy Night
Peace. Joy. Love.

“The whole world tilts tonight. Love has come down, not as power, but as weakness. Not as judgment, but as mercy. Not as a king on a throne, but as a baby in a feeding trough. And that means there is no place too small, too dark, too ordinary for Christ to enter.

So we lean forward with the shepherds, trembling with anticipation. The night sky splits open. Heaven invades earth. And the announcement is not for the powerful but for “all the people.” Love has come, and nothing will ever be the same.

Blessed are we, standing on tiptoe at the manger,
awed that God would stoop so low.
Blessed are we who dare to believe
that Love Himself has come down,
not just for the world,
but for us.” – Kate Bowler

Dec 25

Divine Above and Below Meet

“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” – Norman Vincent

“One way of viewing the rest of that lit baby’s life is to note how he used the light in him to spot the light in everything else: not just birds of the air and lilies of the field but also shushed children, disabled beggars, foreign soldiers, and defiant women, among many others. He made the ordinary luminous by noticing what was happening right where he was and calling others to notice it too. When time ran out, he sealed his teaching by shining light on the simple acts of washing feet and sharing supper with his friends.

Whatever more his birth story means, it means an end to any estrangement between the Divine Above and the Divine Below. The light goes both ways. Heaven and nature sing.” – Barbara Brown Taylor

May this Christmas Day be the one that you say Yes!
Like Mary did.
Like children do everyday.
Without delay or pause.
Yes to joy, hope, peace, grace, awe, wonder, beauty, love.
The gift and the giver.
Merry Christmas.

A BLESSING FOR CHRISTMAS DAY by Kate Bowler

“God, this is a kind of magic
the way this day shines so strangely,
how it sparkles beyond our understanding.

But, somehow, this day
never fails to awaken a longing
to love well—or at least better—
all those here with us, and those far away,
and to remember with gratitude
those now gone, gone, gone and missed.

What is this mystery?

Our God who set the world spinning
should come down for this one reason:
to love us into a newness.
Not for gain, nor our capitalist fantasies,
but the hope that freely, lavishly,
that we might learn to see, feel, and live Christ’s love.
Thank you.
Christ the Giver and the Gift.”

Dec 24

To Be Interrupted

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“…And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.”― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

To be interrupted
From old thoughts
Narrow views
Our own way
Busy and speed
To awaken to beauty, grace, joy
Slow and stillness
Awe and wonder
Reverence and praise
To be interrupted
Traveling a new path
Of love without condition, the only kind.

“God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

Dec 16

Bright, Bold, Wide Love

“We never grow closer to God when we just live life. It takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.”― Francis Chan, Crazy Love

A Blessing for Compassion for All by Kate Bowler

“Blessed are we, God’s beloved.
Whether we bask in happiness of a season of opportunities
or find ourselves bracing against a fresh storm of hard things.

Blessed are you who are sad and sore,
waiting for the next breath to come more easily.
You are here, and you are loved.

Blessed are you who carry your joy openly,
in the happiness of longings fulfilled.
You are here, and you are loved.

Welcome all, look around!
We might change places tomorrow,
but for now, we are all together
as those who are the beloved of God.

We have been looped together
into the wideness of God’s compassion,
into the kinship of the imperfect
who are perfectly loved.

Blessed are we, eyes wide open
to the fact that there’s nothing like it,
this love that generates love exponentially:
it doesn’t detract.
It only gives.

Here in Advent we see its coming
gentle as the dawn,
healing as sunlight.
Love that actively grows us into our truest selves.
People who can love
just like that.”

One week to Christmas.
The rush.
The jamming one more thing in.
The hurry and hustle.
Or not.
To choose differently rather than habitually.
To see and partake in the fullness of this day.
To dare to pause, gaze, kneel.
In wonder, awe, reverence.
If but for a moment or two.
Wide, deep, exponential love.
Receive and give.

“All worldly joys go less
To the one joy of doing kindnesses.”
― George Herbert, The Complete Poetry

Dec 11

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To the Earth Below

“You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest? … The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”― David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea

Winter Snow
Lyrics by Chris Tomlin, sung by Audrey Assad

“You could’ve come like a mighty storm
With all the strength of a hurricane
You could’ve come like a forest fire
With the power of heaven in Your flame

But You came like a winter snow
Quiet and soft and slow
Falling from the sky in the night
To the Earth below

Oh, You could’ve swept in like a tidal wave
Or a big ocean to ravish our hearts
You could have come through like a roaring flood
To wipe away the things that we’ve scarred

Oh, but He came like a winter snow
So quiet, so soft, so slow
Falling from the sky in the night
To the Earth below”

Waking to a coating of fresh snow.
First real one of the season.
A surprise.
Quiet. Soft. Slow.
Still. Small. Hidden.
Present.
Beautiful.
Advent summed up.
Let it unfold in your heart.
In the waiting.
In the winding roads.
In the delays and detours.
Spring blooming in winter.

“But what would that be like
feeling the tide rise
out of the numbness inside”― David Whyte, Where Many Rivers Meet

Dec 2

Season of Light

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life.” – John O’Donohue

“That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality–your soul, if you will–is as bright and shining as any that has ever been….Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”― George Saunders

Luminous.
Light.
Energy.
Thin spaces.
Quiet, steady light within.
Shine.
Christmas unfolding slowly.
Enter the season of light.

“During Advent, we occupy our greatest longings.”– Ruth Haley Barton

Dec 1

Roses in December

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”― J.M. Barrie

A Blessing for Beginning Again in Advent by Kate Bowler

God, could this be the year when we see it?
The goodness that is coming,
like starlight from a distant time?

Could this be the Advent when we sense it?
That the springtime of the soul
will one day last forever?

Could this be the Advent when we notice
the inbreaking of your coming promises?
Promises full of blessing:
of truth so clear, so bright
that every shadowy lie must flee away.

Of compassion so deep, so strong
that everyone is encircled in its embrace.
Of restoration so complete, so beautiful
that there is gladness everywhere.
And of justice so satisfying and so right,
that all will be well.

May this Advent be the new beginning,
as we learn to live by the light
of your coming promises.

Glimpsing the world through tears,
while also seeing something
sacred shining through too.

Our Truth. Our Light.
Our Promise incarnate.
Amen.”

First day, last month.
First day of Advent.
The journey all are invited too.
All.
Accept the invitation.
No rules, regulations or membership card required.
May this first day of Advent, first day of the last month of this year.
Be filled with reflection, inquiry, longing, belonging, listening, transformation.
New beginnings, the invitation to all, not some or few.
Trust the anchor.
Hope the kite.
Light in the dark.
Roses in December.

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