The First Day: And Heaven and Nature Sing!

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

(Isaac Watts, 1719)

The day has dawned!  Sometime in the night, God tiptoed into the world and made a home.  And the world will never be the same again.  Most of us barely noticed.  Most of the world wakes this morning and goes on with their lives.  That's OK.  If God had wanted fanfare, then I supposed God would have come with a bit more flourish and drama.  But instead, God enters as one of us, quietly slipping the Divine into our midst with as little noise as possible.  (Although I suppose it's hard to enter quietly with a multitude of angels in tow!)

When Isaac Watts first wrote the familiar Christmas carol "Joy to the World", he didn't mean for it to be a carol at all.  The words were originally written to celebrate the triumphant second coming of Christ rather than the birth that we celebrate this morning.  I think that's the reason it works, though.  God's coming into the world is not merely something that happened more than 2,000 years ago.  Today is not the celebration of the anniversary of Jesus' birth as if it is some sort of historic relic that we hold; rather, today--THIS day--IS the coming of God into our midst, the realization that even now, Heaven is spilling into our lives, making a home, and Heaven and Nature are singing together.

God comes quietly, tiptoeing into our lives each and every day of our existence.  A new Light has dawned and every day is Christmas!  So when the Holy and Sacred dawn in our life, are we called to join in loud acclaim, or are we called to silently open our our lives and let the Divine spill in?  With all respect to Mr. Watts, I'm not a big watcher of the "Second Coming" of Christ.  I don't know what that looks like and the Scriptures are not that specific about it.  I think the point of Christmas is that the Lord is come!  God came quietly into our world as the Christ child more than 2,000 years ago.  It was the First Day of the new dawn.  And the Light has been rising each every day since.  And for every heart that quietly opens and makes room for God to tiptoe in and make a home, the Light becomes brighter.  Rather than waiting for God's coming, let us see that God is here.  Let us see that every day is Christmas.  (And, along the same lines, perhaps every day is the triumphant coming for which we are looking until God's Kingdom and the recreation of all is complete!)  Joy to the World!  The Lord is come!

The Lord is come!  Let us now go and see this thing that has taken place!


On this First Day of Christmas, open the gift of the Holy and the Sacred, the gift of the Christchild and then open your heart that you might prepare room for God to come each and every day!

Merry Christmas!

Shelli     

Maybe This Night Will Be The Night

"The Nativity"
Lorenzo Lotto, 1523
National Gallery of Art
Washington D.C., USA

Luke 2: 1-14 (KJV) 
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.  (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Mary and Joseph have arrived.  The crowds are almost too much to take, pushing and crushing as the couple makes their way through them.  Mary doesn't feel well.  She really needs to just lie down and rest.  And when you don't feel well, the last place you want to be is somewhere that is not home, somewhere foreign, somewhere so crowded, so unwelcoming.  They need to hurry.  There is not too much time left. 

They stop at a small inn up on the hill overlooking the shepherds' pastures down below.  Joseph leaves Mary for a moment and goes to make arrangements for a place to stay.  But when he returns, his face looks frustrated, almost in tears.  He tells Mary that the inn is full.  In fact, the whole town is full.  There is no place to stay.  There is no room.  But he tells Mary that the innkeeper has given them permission to at least go into the stableroom to keep warm.  He's freshening the hay now.  Well, it will have to do.

You know, I think the innkeeper gets a bad wrap.  I mean, was he supposed to kick someone else out?  And consider this:  This was not the Hilton.  It probably wouldn't even qualify as a roadside motel.  It was probably just a couple of small beds in the innkeeper's home.  And first century houses were often just a room or maybe two of actual living quarters anyway.  The second or third room was attached to the house and used to house the animals that were so much a part of their life.  No one in this small town would have owned a large "ranch" estate. The stable probably wasn't "out back" the way we think.  It was part of the home.  So the innkeeper was possibly, on some level, bringing Mary and Joseph, bringing strangers, into his home. What that means is that the Divine came into the world because someone acted human.  Isn't that amazing?

So Mary and Joseph entered the stableroom and, surrounded by animals, tried to get some rest.   They could still hear the crowded city outside.  They could hear the Roman guards yelling as they tried to control the crowds.  It made the place feel every more foreign, even more foreboding.  But directly overhead, was the brightest star they had ever seen.  It was as if the tiny little stable was being bathed in light.  So Mary laid down and closed her eyes.  She knew that the time was almost here.  She knew that the baby was coming into the world.

And on this night of nights, into a cold, dirty stable in a small town filled with yelling and pushing crowds, into a place occupied by soldiers, into a place that did not feel like home, into a world that had no room, God comes.  The door to the Divine swings open and God and all of heaven burst into our little world, flooding it with Light and Life.  And yet, the child in the manger bathed in light, the very Incarnation of the Divine, Emmanuel, God With Us, the Messiah, is, still, one of us.  God takes the form of one of us--just an ordinary human--a human like you and me--to show us what it means to be one of us, to be human, to be made in the image of God.

God comes into a world that is unprepared for God, that has no room for God.  God comes into places that are unclean, unworthy, unacceptable for us, much less for the Divine.  God comes into places that most of us would not go, out of fear of the other, out of fear of the unknown, out of fear of the darkness. And there God makes a home.  The Divine begins to pour into the world and with it a vision of the world pouring into the Divine.  This night, though, is not the pinnacle of our lives but, rather, the beginning.  God comes, bathed in Light, in the humblest of disguises immagineable, into the lowliest of places we know, into the darkest night of the soul, that we might finally know that all of the world is of God, all of the world is bathed in the Divine.  God comes so that we might finally see life as we are called to see it and live life as we are called to live it, filled with mercy and compassion and awareness of our connectedness to all the world.  God comes so that we might finally be human, so that we might finally make room. 

Perhaps the world will never be completely ready for God.  If God waited for us to be completely prepared, God would never come at all.  But this God doesn't need our preparation. This God doesn't need to come into a place that is cleaned up and sanitized for God.  Instead, God comes when and where God comes.  God comes into godforsakenness, into a world that is occupied by foreignness, where the need for God is the greatest, into a world that cries out for justice and peace, and there God makes a home.  God comes into the darkness and bathes it in light.

The time is almost here.  In just a few hours the door to the Divine will swing open and God and all of heaven will burst into the world.  If you stop and listen, just for a moment, you can hear the harps eternal in the distance as they approach our lives.  Can't you feel it?  Doors opening, light flooding in, the earth filled with a new vision of hope and peace.  Maybe, just maybe, tonight will be different.  Maybe this is the night that the world chooses peace and justice and love.  Maybe this is the night that the world takes joy. Maybe this is the night when the world realizes that it is already filled with the Divine.  Maybe this is the night when we become human.  Maybe this is the night that we make room.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;

Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!

(Phillips Brooks)

On this night of nights, give yourself the gift of making room for God.  Give yourself the gift of being human.  Give yourself the gift of making this night the beginning of God's coming into the world.

Merry Christmas!

Shelli

And Hear the Angels Sing!

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though youa are small
among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one
who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times." (Micah 5:2)

The day is almost upon us.  We've got presents wrapped and under the tree and your kitchen probably smells like the cookies that just came out of the oven (or perhaps a tastefully-chosen cinnamon and eggnog candle that mimics the same effect.)  Here at St. Paul's, we're approaching the end of the week of frenzy that has included a mad scramble to make sure we have all the information for the 9,846 different bulletins that are needed over the next few weeks. (Well, maybe that's a gross exageration, but you get the idea!)  Plans are in place.  I think we're ready...

Really?  We do this every year.  We walk through Christmas sort of like we're preparing for a very familiar play.  The sets are in place; the costumes are ironed; the lines are memorized.  In those days a decree went out... Mary and Joseph get to Bethlehem at the appropriate time and the innkeeper, following the lines, tells them that there's no room.  The baby shows up on cue and we light our candles and sing Silent Night and then hang around with the shepherds while we wait a week for The Wisemen to make their appearance.  And then we go back to our lives.  Really?  So, how's that mystery thing working for you?

God doesn't usually show up on cue or in the way we've planned for God to show up.  Perhaps God shows up when we've gone back to our lives.  God tends to show up not where the beckoning is loudest but where the need is greatest.  God comes when our questions are so overwhelming that we begin to doubt and gives the Divine a face and a name.  God comes when the world is not prepared, when the world, mired in oppression and poverty and greed, has not yet gotten around to cleaning itself up and making itself presentable, when the world has made no room and so God makes a home in a place that we assumed was downright godforsaken and bathes it in light.  God comes into our darkness and illumines our way.  God comes in mystery not to confuse us or make it harder to believe but to give us a taste of the transcendent mystery and amazing miracle that is part of us all.  God will come when and where and in the way that God will come.  And more than likely it will be outside of the box we've built for God.  When you realize that you do not know, it is there that you will finally see Emmanuel, the God who has been with us the whole time.  Rainer Maria Rilke said to "have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.  The point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Mary and Joseph are close to Bethlehem.  The roads are getting busier and the dust is making it harder to see.  It's like traveling in darkness.  They are tired.  It would be nice to have a soft bed.  And they do not know what is up ahead.  They do not know what the future holds.  Let it be according to your Word!

And ye, beneath life's crushing load, Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.

(Edmund H. Sears, 1849)

         On this day before Christmas Eve, give yourself the gift of mystery.  Let go of your preconceptions (and even your regrets!) about what Christmas holds and what you've planned Christmas to be and hear the angels sing!

Recollection

Last night was the longest night of the year, when the earth's axis tips the farthest away from the sustaining light of the sun.  In our part of the world, we experienced nearly fourteen hours of darkness.  Known as the Winter Solstice, it also means that winter has officially begun.  Last night was our Service of the Longest Night, which we have every year.  It is a service of acknowledging sorrow in the midst of celebration, grief in the midst of happiness, and light in the midst of darkness.  It is a service that reminds us that God is in all of life.

Recollection, in the context of one's spiritual walk, means attention to the presence of God in one's life. Living a recollected life has little to do with happiness or calm.  It's not about things always going our way.  It's certainly not about God answering all our prayers in the way we think they need to be answered.  Living a recollected life means living a life that is balanced and enduring.  It means being alive.  It means knowing in the deepest part of our souls that God is with us and that there is always something more than what we see.

As I sat in last night's service, I couldn't help but look back over the last year.  Some of those who came up to the altar to light a candle were those with whom I had walked through the most profound loss and grief imagineable.  But I have also held brand new life in my arms and celebrated the hope and promise that comes with that.  In the last months, I have been with those who are staring death in the face and those who in that very moment were crossing the line between earthly life and the next journey.  (And we sang!)  You would assume that that range of experiences comes with being a pastor.  It does, but I think that, more importantly, it comes with being human, being fully human.  Being fully means being totally immersed in the full range of humanity--sorrow and happiness, grief and celebration, life and death.  And in it all is joy--not happiness, which is momentary and fleeting--but true, profound, abiding joy.

This morning I watched an interview with another pastor from Houston (who shall remain nameless but whose initiatls are J.O.) who depicted the Spirit of Christmas as happiness.  Well, I will say that I respectfully disagree.  The Spirit of Christmas, the Spirit of Christ's coming, is not to bring us happiness and health.  Those are temporary, fleeting.  God was born into this world as human, as fully human, set to experience the full range of humanity.  God brought the Divine Presence into all those things.  And, there, was joy--abiding, eternal, neverending joy!  (And we sang!)

Being fully human means being recollected, seeing the Presence of God in all things and all things in the Presence of God.  Only three more days to go!  The air is so thick with the Presence of God you can almost touch it.  I suppose that's the whole point.  For what are you waiting?  Recollect yourself.  Become fully human.  There's a baby coming!  And take joy!

The day is almost here!  Gift yourself the gift of recollection.  Take all that you are and that you have, the full range of who you are, and begin traveling to Bethlehem.  Give yourself the gift of joy, no matter how happy your life is at the moment!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

For the Sake of the World

Mary and Joseph have been traveling for a couple of days.  It's so hard.  The days are sweltering; the nights are cold.  The wind hasn't stopped.  It's just that time of year.  Why are we doing this?  Why are we trying so hard to do the right thing?

The truth is, "God With Us? " is just sometimes a little uncomfortable.  How can we comfortably live our lives with Emmanuel hanging around?  I mean, really, what are we supposed to do?  I saw a bumper sticker several years ago that said, "God is coming; Look busy!" You laugh (because, granted, it's funny!), but isn't that what many of us think deep down? No matter what we say intellectually (that God is with us, that God is everywhere, that God is everything), the truth is that we STILL sort of think of God as some sort of far-away supervisor that is "up there" keeping score of our lives. 

Maybe that's the point!  Maybe Emmanuel, God With Us, means that we ARE to get busy, that we ARE supposed to do something.  Maybe God just got tired of being relegated to scorekeeper and wanted to show us how to play the game!  The miracle of God's coming is not about a manger, or a star, or a baby.  It's not about whether or not Mary was a literal virgin or not! (Really, does it matter that much?) And it's DEFINITELY not about making sure that we buy each person the same number of presents!  The miracle of God's coming is that the Divine, conceived as removed and secure from the muck of the world, poured into our midst.  God came that the world might change and that we might change along with it.

So do I know Jesus Christ as my personal savior?  (OK, I'll probably get in trouble here!)  God didn't come in the form of Jesus to be my brother, or my friend, or even my personal savior.  God came for the sake of the world.  God came bursting into the struggles of this world so that people like me would wake up, recollect myself, and go forward to do what God calls me to do.  God came that we might be for the other.  In all truth, the meaning of Emmanuel, God With Us, is that God's coming means that it is time for us to go to others, to the world, to wherever God is calling us to go. God's coming is our call to going.  We hear it over and over in the Scriptures that will come after this story as the child grows and enters ministry--"rise, take up your bed and go home," "you give them something to eat," "love your enemies," "let your light shine," "love one another," "take, eat," "they know not what they do."  These are as much a part of the Christmas story as "in those days, a decree went out...", or "laid in a manger," or "no room in the inn."  In fact, this is the way that Emmanuel comes over and over and over again.  God came to us as "fully human" and yet still remains as "fully divine."  Both are made in the image of God, the image of the God's unfailing and unfathomable grace in the world.

So, is Jesus my personal savior?  For the sake of the world, I pray so.  It's not about being on my best behavior; it's about birthing the Savior of the world into the world for the world. 

Lift up your heads, ye mighty gate; behold the King of glory waits;
the King of kings is drawing near; the Savior of the world is here.

Fling wide the portals of your heart; make it a temple, set apart
from earthly use for heaven's employ, adorned with prayer and love and joy.

Redeemer, come, with us abide; our hearts to thee we open wide;
let us thy inner presence feel; thy grace and love in us reveal.

Thy Holy Spirit lead us on until our glorious goal is won;
eternal praise, eternal fame be offered, Savior, to thy name.

(Georg Weissel, 1642, trans. by Catherine Winkworth,, 1855)

 

God is coming!  Give yourself the gift of being God With Us, of being God in the world!  Give yourself the gift of making Jesus your personal Savior by being Christ for the sake of the world. 

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

        

So What, Exactly, Were You Expecting?

What were we expecting?  Well, of course, we were expecting someone obvious, someone  who would make himself known in the world, someone who is a little bit better than you or I.  We were expecting power and might and grandiose presentation.  But instead God walked into our very human existence.  God traversed time and space and the perceived separation between the sacred and the ordinary and entered our everyday world.  On some level, that bothers many of us.  After all, we are trying to do BETTER than this; we are aspiring to be more than human.  What in the world is God doing messing around in the muck of this world?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that "by virtue of the creation and, still more, of the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see."  So, perhaps God came into this very ordinary world to show us the holiness that has been created, the sacredness that in our worldliness, we were somehow missing.  Perhaps God steps into our lives to show us the depth that we haven't dared to dig into our lives.  Perhaps God came and walked with us not to show us how to be but to show us how to see.  But when it's all said and done, this practice we have of "looking for God" has been proven bizarre.  After all, it was never God that was lost!  We were never separated from the sacred; we just missed seeing it because it wasn't what we were expecting.  So, again, what were we expecting?  Maybe the the whole lesson is that God will come when and where and in the way that God will come.  But if there's a "pattern" to be figured out about this God who cannot be figured out, it's that God comes into the unexpected, into the unplanned, and into the unprepared places in our lives and lays down in a feed trough and patiently waits for the world to wake up and notice.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to sety thy people free, from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art, dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a King, born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thine own eternal spirit rule in all our hearts alone; by thine own sufficient merit, raise us to thy glorious throne.

(Charles Wesley, 1744)

In these final days of Advent,  we are all busy preparing for the day of God's coming.  But whether or not we get it done, whether or not the house is clean or the goodies are baked or the presents are wrapped, God will come and the world will never be the same.  Expectation is about moving into what will be rather than preparing to bring it into what is.
 
What are you expecting?  That's probably not it!  Give yourself the gift of being open to the way that God comes without expecting it to happen in a certain way!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

"Journey to Bethlehem"
Joseph Brickey, ca. 1973

So, what does it mean to say "God With us"?  The name, Immanuel, that the child is to be given is a symbolic name, a short Hebrew sentence.  We like the idea of God being here to pull us out of our next quandry in life in which we will find ourselves.  But isn't it more than that?  God has finally, after an entire history of generations of humanity, sought us out.  In essence, God put aside, if only for a little while, all God-liness, to come and join our little world.  God breaks into humanity not with a triumphant shout but into one of the lowliest, one of the most god-forsaken, one of the most human places of all.  Our image of this patriarchal God sitting on a golden throne somewhere up in the clouds looking down upon this struggling world just doesn't work anymore.  The God who we could not see, the God who we could not name, the God into whose face we could not look or surely we would die has just become one of us. So what do we do now?

When I was little, I used to lay in bed (when I was supposed to be asleep) and think about the notion of God being "everywhere".  Well that was something that I just couldn't get my head around.  I mean, there had to be limits.  There had to be a place where God could not see me.  So I would pull the covers over my head and try to figure out if God could see me there.  We all do that, if only figuratively.  Oh, we SAY that God is with us, we SAY that God walks with us, but then we try to find a temporary hiding place from this God who is "up there" or "out there" or wharever "there" we think God is.  After all, it's kind of like living with your boss, isn't it?   I saw a bumper sticker a couple of years ago that read "God is coming.  Look busy!"  Oh, we laugh, because it's way too close to the way we think!  I mean, we're all so wrapped up in our lives.  There's just so little time.  There's just too much going on!  And the world is changing so rapidly.  It's not like it used to be.  But we'll keep working to get to God.  Well, SURPRISE!  God came to us.  Not only that, God came WITH us, entering into the bottom of our house of cards that is our world.  So, it seems now, "getting to God" is really no longer necessary.  Maybe we just have to open our eyes, and hold out our hand, and, oh yeah, it helps if you don't have the covers pulled over your head!

Modern-Day Israel just outside of the Region of Galilee

Mary and Joseph are journeying toward Bethlehem, silently walking through the dust and sands.  This trip was not convenient but they had no choice.  It normally takes four days or so but it is difficult for Mary to travel.  The world is crazy right now, busy and spinning out of control.  Everything is changing.  There is talk of some unrest and some skirmishes up ahead.  This is not the time to be traveling.  This trip is dangerous.  But they have to keep going.  There's a baby coming!



O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O Come, thou Wisdom, from on high, and order all things far and nigh;
to us the path of knowledge show and cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, O come, great Lord of might, who to thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times once gave the law in cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, thou Root of Jesse's tree, an ensign of thy people be; 
before thee rulers silent fall; all people on thy mercy call.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home.
The captives from their prison free, and conquer death's deep misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, thou Dayspring, come an dcheer our spirity by they justice here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, Desire of nations bind all people in one heart and mind.
From dust thought brought us forth to life; deliver us from earthly strife.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

(9th century Latin, with translations by Laurence Hull Stookey; vs. 2 by Henry Sloane Coffin, 1916)

 
The time is almost here!  In this final week of Advent, give yourself the gift of pulling away everything that clouds your view that you might see the God who Comes.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT: Right Side Up

As we light the fourth candle on the Advent wreath today, we began to be aware that things are changing.  Christmas is only a week away.  The world leans toward the light just a bit, if only a bit, trying to get a glimpse, trying to see what is coming.  And as the world leans toward the coming of Christ, we are aware that something is not quite right.  We are aware that perhaps this is not the way the world is supposed to be after all.

When I was little, I used to love to hang upside down.  Things looked different.  I saw things that I had not seen before.  And then I would turn myself right side up, a little dizzy, perhaps even a little nauseous, but better for the view.  God came into this world to show us a different way, to show us that we have somehow, perhaps without really noticing, without really intending it to happen at all, tipped the world upside down.  We have elevated wealth; we have allowed hunger; we have awarded the powerful with more power and have not always paid attention to the compassionate and just part of us. We have allowed the world to tip over and then we have set up house on an upside-down world.  So, God comes.  God comes to right the world.  Our inclination is to hold on, to grasp and claw our way back to what we think is the way up.  But instead God invites us to just go with it, to turn ourselves right just as the world is turning.  Sometimes it is painful.  Sometimes we get dizzy and maybe even a little nauseous.  After all, change is hard.  We might have to give up something that we think is precious to us.  And so we hold on.  We hold on for dear life.  And all the while God is calling us to open our hands that we might receive what God is giving us.

As this final week of Advent begins, we are called to learn to let go.  If all was right with the world, then God would have come wealthy and gold-laden with the power of the world in tow.  But that's not the way it happened at all.  God instead slipped in when most of us weren't looking, when most of us were busy making our lives, slippsed into the bowels of the world.  God chose to come into poverty and helplessness to show us it means for everything to be right with the world.  And God, in God's infinite wisdom, knows how to show us how to stand and walk and even hang upside down once in awhile on this up-turned world and finally, finally, see the way to go.

Shhhh!  You can almost hear them--a faint sound of bells in the distance.  And the world seems to be leaning toward them, tipping just a bit.  Do not hold on; do not stay behind.  Just dance with the music and move toward the Light that is just about to dawn.

I cannot create the light. The best I can do is put myself in the path of its beam.  (Annie Dillard)
 
In this final week of Advent, give yourself the gift of letting go--letting go of all your preconceptions, letting go of all those things that you think your life would not be complete without--and letting God right you with the world.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

ADVENT 4B: The Holiest of Words

Lectionary Gospel Text:  Luke 1: (26-27) 28-38
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Of course, this was not in the plan.  She was supposed to get married, have children, and live our her life in quiet anonymity with the quiet and little-known Joseph.  She knew what her life was going to hold. So, when God's Presence suddenly is revealed, breaking into her quietly-orchestrated little world, of course she was afraid.  After all, things were never going to be the same.  There would be no going back and the way forward was murky at best.  And so, Mary hesitates, if only for a moment.  The angel, God, all of Creation, the existence of all who would come after her, hangs, suspended, not moving.  The world stops, straining to hear the Word. Things would never be the same again.  History was at this moment shifting and swaying, not sure of what it would become.  So, she takes a breath--one last breath as the quiet girl Mary.  And with a voice that shakes all of eternity, she responds, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."  "YES."  Nothing would ever be the same again.

On some level, the word "Yes" is perhaps the holiest word of all. It is what changes things; it is what moves us forward; it is our response on this journey that we call faith; it is our way to God.  God calls us, asking us to go a different way, to change our lives and shift our plans, and for one step, or one lifetime, or one eternity, to follow a sacred road that we did not see before.  For this child Mary, when the mystery of God broke into her consciousness, into her plans, she probably did hesitate.  Good grief, who wouldn't?  Don't you think God expects that to be our initial response?  I mean, you'd have to be completely naive or so incredibly self-absorbed and arrogant to not know what was happening to you.  But Mary was anything but naive and nothing near arrogant.  She DID know.  Oh, not the details.  She didn't know how this would alter not only her world, not only her community, but all worlds and communities that ever were and ever would be. She didn't know how difficult and frustrating her life would be.  She didn't know that a little more than three decades later, she would be standing at the foot of two cross-boards helplessly watching this life that she was bringing into the world slip away.  She didn't know how incredibly blessed she would be.  She didn't know what she would become--the lovely subject of artists and sculptors, the namesake of great cathedrals and small house churches, the mother of the world.  She didn't know.  She just knew that it was the way that was hers.  So, yes. "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

Christmas Eve is only a week away, when the wildly spinning world will stop, if only for a moment and once again welcome hope and peace into the world.  But that moment is not the holiest one.  The holiest moment of all is the one that comes next, the one that after the initial hesitation, after the initial, "How can this be?", when we put down our carefully-packed baggage filled with plans and preconceptions, when we open our closed minds and and our cynical hearts, and become virgin enough to birth the Christ into our little world.  It is the moment when we say "Yes", knowing that it will change us forever. "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shine until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

("Let it Be", Words by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1970)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X_Gd1y2MFo&feature=related

"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."

 
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of being virgin enough to move forward, of being open to birthing the Christ into your life, of forming the holy and the sacred on your lips and then speaking the "Yes" that God and the whole world is waiting for you to speak.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Frenzied

Well, it's about that time!  TEN MORE D AYS!!! 20% OFF ONE DAY ONLY!!!  FREE SHIPPING TODAY ONLY!  FIRST 100 CUSTOMERS RECEIVE A FREE ______________ [I don't know, just fill in the blank!]  The truth is, we are frenzied!  We live at a frenzied pace with which, truth be known, none of us can keep up.  I think about my last couple of days.  I made cheesecakes on Monday night for a staff party.  Tuesday night, the fully Type A in me made a list of what I needed to do in the next ten days.  Really?  A list? Last night I talked to a friend on the phone for way too long, which means the list is already thrown way off.  And today? Well, first of all, I found out late in the day that google had somehow  "mediated" my post from today, which means I had to TELL it that it was not spam. (OK, really, would I "spam" myself?)   I think it's just a conspiracy to keep us from dancing!  (Anyway, sorry about that!)

But, think about it--we're probably not the first people on the planet to live frenzied.  Think back--"Joseph, you'll need to spend the next few days and take off from your carpenter's job and pop over to Bethlehem to pay this new tax that we've concocted.  We hope that works for you. Oh?  Your wife is about to go into labor?  And, really, she is birthing the salvation of the world, the Son of the God, the Messiah?  Well, that's great, but you still need to pay your taxes on time or we can garnish your wages or take your house or throw you into once of those new Roman prisons."  And so they went--Mary and Joseph, supposedly on a donkey or a mule or something of the like.  They arrived in Bethlehem.  But apparently everyone had gotten the same notice.  Do you believe all this traffic?  Why didn't we make a reservation?  (Oh, really, Joseph?  What were you thinking?) Where is that first century Groupon when you need it?  Mary, I know this is hard.  I PROMISE that I will find a place for us to spend the night.  You're WHAT?  NOW?  Are you kidding me? 

We all know the story.  There would be no room.  There would be frenzy.  And so we made do.  We took what we could get--a sort of back room filled with hay and cast-off blankets.  It was filled with animals cowering from the cold.  And there Jesus was born into the frenzy of the world.  Truth be known--there was never calm but there was always peace.  But the point is that God still came--came into the frenzy of the world.  God does not wait until everything is calm and together.  God does not come because you have all the decorations up (I think most of mine will again stay packed away in storage); God does not come because you finally have all the gifts wrapped; and God does not come because the world is ready, because the world is at peace. God just comes, frenzy and all.  And all we have to do is put on our dancing shoes!
 
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of not having to have everything perfect, of not bowing to frenzy.  Give yourself the gift of peace!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

ADVENT 4B: 'Bout Time We Start Dancin'!

Lectionary Text: Romans 16: 25-27
Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.

In this Fourth week of Advent, we read this doxology along with the imminence of Jesus’ birth.  Read alongside the story of Mary as God-bearer, we have the sense that the full Gospel is starting to unfold.  This is in no way a “replacement” for the Law of Moses; it is that Law seen to its fulfillment in the new humanity, the new Adam, in Jesus Christ.  Gentiles have been “grafted” into a story that was already taking place, already in full swing.  This is nothing new.  It is, rather, the doxology.  For Paul, HIS gospel was the “unveiling” of something that had been around from the very beginning.

Scholars think that it is quite possible that Paul did not write these verses but that they were attached to the end of the letter perhaps AS a doxology, a statement of praise and proclamation.  But regardless of who wrote it, this is a statement of response.  It is, to use Paul’s words, an “obedience of faith.”  The Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ invokes our response; otherwise it is virtually meaningless.  In Feasting on the Word, Cathy F. Young quotes Helmut Thielicke when he says, “Faith can be described only as a movement of flight, flight away from myself and toward the great possibilities of God.”  The whole gospel in its fullness is about our response.  It is our faith that moves it and opens up the possibilities that God envisioned.

Advent is about letting ourselves envision what God envisions and then moving toward it.  Because into this world that often seems random and meaningless, full of pain and despair; into this society that is often callous and lacking of compassion, directionless and confused; into our lives that many times are wrought with grief and a sense that it is all for naught; into all of it is born a baby that holds the hope of the world for the taking.  We just have to be open and willing to take it.  The great illustrator and writer, Tasha Tudor said, “the gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.  Take joy!”  This is what this doxology says:  All of this that has been laid out for you, all of this that has been created; all of this that has for so long been moving toward your life, take it.  Take joy!  Tomorrow will be your dancing day!

I love Christmas Eve at St. Paul's.  I actually don't know how to explain it.  It's magnificent; it's magical; it's mystery.  It's like nothing you've ever experienced before. It moves you into someplace that you have not been before.  It takes you out of yourself and gives you a glimpse, albeit a tiny, tiny glimpse, of what it's all about, of why we're here, of that to which we journey.  This will be my eighth year to participate in the processional that winds through the nave, encompassing everyone who is there in music and candlelight and incredible joy.  I say processional because, even though it comes toward the end of the service, it leads us to something more.  It leads us to our response.  It brings me to tears.  (I will say that in these last seven years, I have been brought to tears each year--six because it has moved me beyond myself and the seventh because, I have to tell you, Gail caught Emily's hair on fire with her candle and had to hastily put it out with her bulletin.  Thankfully, Emily had very little hair product on her hair that night!  We were laughing so hard we couldn't even see where we were going!  (See, you just don't know what will happen when you let us loose!)

But the point is that this is our way of taking joy, of connecting to the mystery of the God who came and comes. Often, our choir will sing an Old English carol that I have grown to love (in fact, let it be known, that I want it sung at my funeral!)  because it is a song of joy, a song of deep abiding love.  It is the song that we should all be singing.  It is our invitation to joy.  The song itself is more than a carol.  It has additional verses (although some are extremely anti-semitic).  It tells the story of Jesus' life, the Gospel, the Good News--the birth, the life, the death, the life.  It is the Song of Joy and our invitation to join in!      

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day; I would my true love did so chance

To see the legend of my play, to call my true love to my dance;

Sing, oh! My love, oh! My love, my love, my love, this have I done for my true love.

Then was I born of a virgin pure, of her I took fleshly substance

Thus was I knit to man’s nature, to call my true love to my dance.

(Refrain)

In a manger laid, and wrapped I was, so very poor, this was my chance
Betwixt and ox and a silly poor ass, to call my true love to my dance.

(Refrain)

Traditional English Carol

OK, the time is not here yet, but don't you think it's 'bout time we start dancin'?  Somehow our world has taught us to hold back, to not "count our chickens before they're hatched", to be reserved.  But God?  God just wants us to start dancing so that everyone else will join!

 
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of taking joy, of realizing what God holds for you, of dancing the dance to which you've been invited!  Let tomorrow be your dancing day!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Putting On Shoes



God became human.  Well, sure, God can do that if God chooses, but why?  Why would the Divine CHOOSE to become human, CHOOSE to live a life that includes suffering and fear, CHOOSE to live in this imperfect world?  It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  I suppose it's part of that mystery thing.  And the truth is, we struggle with it.  We try to justify it.  You've heard it all before:  "God was the perfect human," "God was only posing as a human," or "It was part of God's plan."  Really?  God PLANNED to be born into poverty, PLANNED to be born into an oppressive society, PLANNED to struggle, PLANNED to be disliked, and PLANNED to die?  I don't really know if that was all part of God's plan or not.  Is it so hard for us to accept that God just CHOSE to be one of us?  After all, part of being human is being subjected to a certain randomness of order, to a life that, as hard as it is for us to imagine, is beyond our control, and to not only the free will of ourself, but also the free will, the choice to do right or do wrong, that others around us have. Being human means that not all of life is a predictable pattern, not all of life is planned.  But, nevertheless, God became human.  After eons and eons of trying to get our attention, God put on shoes and walked with us.

"Incarnate" literally means "taking on flesh."  It means becoming tangible, real, touchable, accessible.  It means becoming human.  It means putting on shoes. In the book Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr calls it God's "most dangerous disguise."  After all, taking on flesh, becoming tangible, becoming real, touchable, accessible also makes one vulnerable and that is incredibly dangerous.  God put on shoes to show us how to be vulnerable, to show us how to give up a piece of ourself and open ourself to the Divine.

The Shoe Heap, Auschwitz, Poland

More than a decade ago, I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, Poland.  I expected to be appalled; I expected to be moved; I expected to be saddened at what I would fine.  I did not expect to become so personally or spiritually involved.  As you walk through the concentration camp, you encounter those things that belonged to the prisoners and victims that were unearthed when the camp was captured--suitcases, eye glasses, books, clothes, artifical limbs, and shoes--lots and lots and lots and lots of shoes--mountains of humanity, all piled up in randomness and namelessness and despair.  This is humanity at its worst.  This is humanity making unthinkable decisions about one another based on the need to be in control, based on the need to be proved right or worthy or acceptable at the expense of others' lives, based on the assumption that one human is better or more deserving than another.

And yet, God CHOSE to be human.  God CHOSE to put on shoes, temporarily separating the Godself from the Holy Ground that is always a part of us, and entering our vulnerability.  God willingly CHOSE to become vulnerable and subject to humanity at its worst.  But God did this because beneath us all is Holy Ground.  God came to this earth and put on shoes and walked this earth that we might learn to take our shoes off and feel the Holy Ground beneath our feet.  God CHOSE to be human not so we would learn to be Divine (after all, that is God's department) but so that we would learn what it means to take off our shoes and feel the earth, feel the sand, feel the rock, feel the Divine Creation that is always with us and know that part of being human is knowing the Divine.  Part of being human is being able to feel the earth move under your feet, to be vulnerable, to be tangible, to be real, to take on flesh, to be incarnate.  Part of being human is making God come alive.
  
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of being human, being vulnerable, and knowing the God who is Divine. Take off your shoes and feel the earth move under your feet.  God is coming!  The earth is beginning to move!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli



    

ADVENT 4B: The House of God

Model of the Temple
Museum in Jerusalem, Israel

Lectionary Text:  2 Samuel 7: (1-5a), 5b-7, (8-9) 10-11, (16)
Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”...And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evedildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

This text wraps up the promise that God made to Abram in Genesis 12.  The people have a land that they can claim as their own and they can live in peace.  And David's reign as king has been pretty much legitimized. Things seem to be going well.  And so David envisions now a more permanent structure to house the ark of the Lord.  In other words, David now desires to build a temple in Jerusalem.

But that night the Lord intervenes by way of Nathan with a promise not necessarily of a permanent “house” but, rather a permanent dynasty, an everlasting house of the line of David.  David has risen from shepherd boy to king and has apparently felt God’s presence through it all.  He now sits in his comfortable palace and compares his “house” to the tent that “houses God” in his mind.  So he decides that God needs a grand house too.  God, through the prophet Nathan responds by asking, in a sense, "Hey! Did you hear me complaining about living in a tent? No, I prefer being mobile, flexible, responsive, free to move about, not fixed in one place." God then turns the tables on David and says, "You think you're going to build me a house? No, no, no, no. I'M going to build YOU a house. A house that will last much longer and be much greater than anything you could build yourself with wood and stone. A house that will shelter the hopes and dreams of your people long after 'you lie down with your ancestors.'" God promises to establish David and his line "forever," and this is a "no matter what" promise, even if the descendants of David sin, even if "evildoers" threaten.  
The truth is, we all desire permanence; we want something on which we can stand, that we can touch, that we can “sink our teeth into”, so to speak.  We want to know the plan so that we can plan around it.  Well, if this was going to make it easier to understand God, go ahead.  The truth is, this is a wandering God of wandering people.  This is not a God who desires or can be shut up in a temple or a church or a closed mind.  This is not a God who desires to be "figured out."  This God is palatial; this God is unlimited; this God will show up in places that we did not build.  (and sometimes in places that we really wouldn’t go!)  This God does not live in a house; this God dwells with us—wherever we are.  This God comes as a traveler, a journeyer, a moveable feast.  And this God shows up where we least expect God to be—in a god-forsaken place on the outskirts of acceptable society to a couple of people that had other plans for their lives.  This God will be where God will be.  And it IS a permanent home.

In this Advent season, we know that God comes.  That is what we celebrate; that is what we remember; that is what we expect.  After all, this God we worship is the one that is with us, Emmanuel.  But have we planned too much?  Have we somehow convinced ourselves that God can be directed or choreographed or planned into being?  Have we forgotten what it means to simply build a house in which God can live?  Are you the one to build me a house to live in?  Go ahead, build it.  It will be magnificent!

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of building a house of God.  There is no blueprint; there are no plans.  It has no walls, no ceiling, no floor.  It is open to the God who comes.  And know that God will come.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli
      

The Story of God

"Birth of Christ", Robert Campin
ca. 1425-30

There is not one of us that does not love The Christmas Story.  It's got it all--heartache, darkness, intrigue, danger, animals, innocence, an oppressive government, and a baby to boot.  It's got all those things that make great tales.  No wonder it's a bestseller!  No wonder there are so many songs written about it (that we at this moment cannot WAIT to sing!)  But for all the romantic notions of a baby born into a cold desert night in a small town on the other side of the world to poor, struggling parents, this story is not about a birth.  It's not a story about Jesus.  This is the Story of God.

It began long before this.  It began in the beginning.  It began when God breathed a part of the Godself into being and created this little world.  And as the story unfolded, as God's Creation grew into being, God remained with them, a mysterious, often unknown Presence, that yearned to be in relationship with what God had breathed into being.  And once in a while, God's children would stop what they were doing long enough to know and acknowledge the incarnations of God.  Once in awhile, they would encounter a burning bush or a parting sea or an unfathomable cloud on the top of a mountain.  Once in awhile they would stop, take off their shoes, and feel the holiness beneath their feet.  But more often than not, they struggled in darkness, they struggled in war, they struggled in oppression and injustice because they didn't see the Light that was with them.  God called them and God sent them and some were prophets and some were wise and some were yearning themselves to be with God.  Some wrote hymns and poetry telling of their yearning and others just bowed and hoped that God would notice.

This wasn't enough.  It wasn't enough for the people and it wasn't enough for God.  God yearned to be with what God had created.  God desperately wanted humanity to be what they were made to be, to come home to the Divine.  And so God came once again, God Incarnate, into this little world.  But this time, God came as what God had created.  And so God was born into a cold, dark night.  But the earth was almost too full.  There was little room for God.  But, on that night, in a dark grotto on the outskirts of holiness, God was born.  The Divine somehow made room in a quiet, little corner of the world.  God came to show Creation what had been there all along.  And, yet, there was Newness; there was Light; there was finally Meaning; there was God Made Known.

The Incarnation (the "big I" one!) is God's unveiling.  It is God coming out of the darkness and out of the shadows and showing us what we could not see before.  God became one of us to show us how to be like God in the world.  So, in this season, we again hear the story.  We hear the story of God.  But unless we realize that it is our story, it still won't be enough.  God came as God Incarnate into this little world to tell the story that goes back to the beginning.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  (John 1: 1-5)  And the story continues... 

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of being a part of the story, of being Light, of being Life, of being who you were created to be in the beginning.  Give yourself the gift of making room for God.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli
    

THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT: Letting Go of Darkness

St. Paul's United Methodist Church
Houston, TX
December 11, 2011

On this third Sunday in the Advent season, we continue to talk about light, about the Light of God as it comes into the world.  We talk about a light that illumines, a light that shows the way.  We talk about light-bending and light-bearing.  And we are reminded that this is the Light that pushes away the darkness.  And, yet, we still live in darkness.  We still live with injustice.  We still live with fear.  And we still live in a world that yearns for God and searches for Life.

So what is the problem?  If God created Light and then came into this world as Light Incarnate, the living Light, then why is there still so much darkness?  Perhaps it is we that are holding too tightly to the darkness.  Perhaps it is we who just don't want to let go of that to which we are accustomed, of that which makes us comfortable.  Perhaps it is we who rather than adjusting our eyes to the Light, instead choose to shield our eyes and close our hearts until the Light is easier to handle.  Perhaps it is we that cannot let go of the darkness, of injustices that we allow to exist, of exclusions that we do not protest and hungers that we do not feed, and of those places where education, or medical resources, or the very basics of sustenance and life are not supplied because it is just too difficult.  And, so, there is still darkness.  Oh, we know that it's there.  But what can we do? 

Don't you think that if it were completely up to God, the Light would already be encompassing our world and the Kingdom of God would already be living into its fullest being?  I mean, really, what purpose does it serve God to hold back on us?  Why WOULDN'T God want Creation to be what it was created to be?  Why WOULDN'T God desire a world of justice and righteousness and sustenance for all.  Why WOULDN'T God want a world that offers life to all of God's children?  If God is truly omnipotent, if God is all-powerful, why is our world the way it is?  It is because this omnipotent God chose long ago to give up a piece of the Godself.  It's called free will.  God gave the greatest gift to humanity imagineable--a piece of the Divine, the ability to make a choice to let go of darkness and be the Light.  And then God came, Emmanuel, God-With-Us, to show us how to be that Light, to show us what it means to be a child of that Light.  God has never intended to remove us from the darkness of our lives but rather to show us how to transform it into Light, how to transform it into Life.  God is not holding back on us; God is waiting for us to let go of the darkness; God is waiting for us to be light.

Light looked down and beheld Darkness.
‘Thither will I go’, said Light.
Peace looked down and beheld War.
‘Thither will I go’, said Peace.
Love looked down and beheld Hatred.
‘Thither will I go’, said Love.
So came Light and shone.
So came Peace and gave rest.
So came Love and brought Life.

("And the Word Was Made Flesh", by Laurence Housman)

This morning we lit our third candle.  The Light has almost encircled the wreath.  It gives us the image of the Light encircling the world.  And when it is complete, when darkness is transformed, then the Light of Christ will be born to all.  We are the light-bearers.  We are the ones called to be children of the Light, bringing the Light to all.  So, let go of the darkness that it might be transformed into Life.  Be Light. Be Peace. Be Love.  Be the Image of God.

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of letting go of darkness; give yourself the gift of becoming the light that you were called to be, the light that points to the Light of God and brings life to a hurting world.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli