A resolution (or a revolution)

“The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” This is exactly, when it comes down to it, why most people do not believe in grace. It is fucking offensive.”

― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

_______________________________________________________________

My New Year’s resolution this year is simple

And there is only one

This year I am going to believe in grace!

I am going to believe that God has turned myself

and everyone around me

into the beloved Children of God

just by speaking

(and God spoke, and the world began, and Christ was born, and I am God’s child)

Buechner rightly notes that “IN HEBREW THE TERM DABAR means both "word" and "deed." Thus to say something is to do something. "I love you." "I hate you." "I forgive you." "I am afraid of you." Who knows what such words do, but whatever it is, it can never be undone. Something that lay hidden in the heart is irrevocably released through speech into time, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly.”

In Jesus God spoke and said “I love you”

God spoke and said “I am in you”

God spoke and said “I am in everyone you meet”

God spoke and said “Love wins, always”

And so I am going to take God at God’s word

I am going to believe in grace

that God loves me and accepts me

that God is present in me

that God’s Presence rubs off and is somehow mysteriously present through me

in this world

and that I can make a difference

I am going to believe in grace

for that guy carrying a gun in McDonalds

for that knife wielding man who crashed and Hanukkah party

and tried to kill

for Donald Trump

for those obstructing justice

for those unacceptable and incompetent judges being put in our federal courts

for that person who shouts hate at a young Muslim girl

for that one who wants to refuse sanctuary for refugees and clamors for a wall

for that fearful one

that hateful one

That racist one

that 1%er greedy one

I am going to believe in grace

No matter how offensive that person is to me

I am going to believe in grace

Even though grace is offense

(and believe me, it is offensive to believe in grace

for those who hate, and exclude, you hoard, and kill)

I am going to believe in grace

And I am going to believe there is no limit to what God can do for them

For if I cannot believe grace for them

I cannot truly believe grace for me

(at least not without really claiming privilege and merit, which is just silly)

So this year

I am going to believe in grace

And I am going to believe in what grace can do

In me

In you

In them

For grace is both the end

And the beginning

Happy New Year

In the hands of an angry God

“[the Devil]... stands waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it...”

                               Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

“God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word ... it's that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn't about God creating humans and flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace - like saying, "Oh, it's OK, I'll be the good guy and forgive you." It's God saying, "I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.”

― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

“I know nothing, except what everyone knows - if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”

― W.H. Auden, Collected Poems

_______________________________________________

We have a choice it seems

Grace

Or

Merit

We are either people in a love relationship with a God of love

Sacred children

Being helped to live out our lives according to the original design

The original blessing

Of being creatures who reflect, in our very being, the Sacred

Love

Or we are sinful lumps of clay in the hands of an angry God

Playing out the art of the deal

Where in fear we seek to placate One who is all too eager

To send us (and most others) into eternal torment

We are either loved (period) into communion, and then union (or reunion)

with the Sacred,

simply need to come awake to that love to enjoy it,

and be changed by it

(for love does change us, and Love [God] does make us new)

Or we are people who must believe the right things

Spout the right formulas (Jesus is Lord?)

Go to the right church

Vote for the right candidate

In order to be “saved”

I know it is complicated

This relationship with have with Sacred

We throw around all these big words

Justification, Sanctification, Atonement

And we talk about grace

But I wonder if too many people have lost the concept of grace

And replaced with faith as transaction…

With grace Jesus came to show us ‘the way’

To show us that God is love

And to show us that when we are awake to God we can live life a different way

With grace the cross is God showing us what God can do

With human hate and brutality,

God showing us that even when humanity does its worst

And kills

Love still wins, and brings life out of death

A beginning out of an ending

With transaction

Well honestly the birth of Jesus makes little sense

His teachings make less sense!

Give up all you have and give?

Be the servant of all?

Die to live?

Really?

And the cross becomes God

Enacting retribution

“Somebody has to pay”

I know, its complicated

There are those big words

But still transactional faith comes down to this

I have to earn my way into grace

(how is that for an odd statement)

I have to say those words

I have to get dunked

I have to do certain things

And then God saves me

I escape eternal torment

But it’s a transaction

Or else its in the fire I go

Or else my life turns to shit

But there is the problem.

When we enter the world of transaction

It taints everything….

We have God’s love, they don’t (not yet, not really)

We are in, they are out

We are saved, they are going to hell

We are loved, they are hated (by God)

And here is the thing I notice

This is the most powerful side effect of merit faith

It makes us cruel

Faith should not make us cruel

But wow

Even while we sing “just as I am”

We are thinking, “just as you are when…..”

When you get your life together

When you stop using

When you stop drinking

When you have become responsible, and have cobbled together

A living wage out of your three minimum wage jobs

I’ve done what I need to do

Now it is your turn

Suck it up!

Get it together

When you do, I will accept you

When you do, God will accept you.

When you do, then we can talk about healthcare

And food stamps

And housing

And when you do, then we will welcome you fully,

Into the circle of God’s love

Christians, who should be the most grateful and most accepting

And welcoming people in the world

Are all too often the ones

Shaming

Rejecting

Demanding merit

Which brings us back to love

Not love earned

But love giving

That mysterious love we find clearly distinguished in the Bible

Agape love

Love without strings

Love unmerited

Love simply given

That is God’s love

We struggle to believe in it

For ourselves, or for others

And that love, when poured into us

By the Spirit

Should become our love

And that love

Is God saying to us and through us

"I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.” (Bolz-Weber)

start again

Come to Me/ Goo Goo Dolls

Come to me my sweetest friend

Can you feel my heart again

I'll take you back where you belong

And this will be our favorite song

Come to me with secrets bare

I'll love you more so don't be scared

And when we're old and near the end

We'll go home and start again

________________________________

2019 comes whimpering to an end

It has been a year

I come to this place tired, dealing with pain

Angry, at times

Sad, at times

Rarely hopeful

I also come to this place understanding in a way I never have before

Impermanence

Which is perhaps the same as saying we are dust

And that death is as sure as taxes (unless you are in the 1%)

But is mostly a way to remind ourselves

That we are constantly connecting with life

With others

And with the Sacred in such a way

That we constantly let go

And hand in hand with Love

Start again

And again, and again

New Years is a pale shadow

Of a reality we are to live each moment of our lives

Letting go of what was

Dying, so to speak

And being born again

Into whatever is next

There are many “whatever is next” moments in our lives

And in those moments we feel fragmented and vulnerable

Tumbled about

But there is a next

And if we let the Sacred ‘feel our hearts’ again

Then that next can be transformation

A starting over, and over and over

A return home (in my father’s house are many rooms)

It is not just change

“Change of itself just happens;

spiritual transformation is an active process of letting go,

living in the confusing dark space for a while,

and allowing yourself to be spit up on a new and unexpected shore.” (Rohr)

So in these last few days of 2019

So in these last days of a tumultuous decade

Where we have moved from despair, to hope and back to despair,

join me in looking back, but only briefly

Look back,

And then let go

Let go of the anger and guilt, disappointment and frustration

Let go of the failure

Let go of the old definitions

Let go even of the comfortable, if there was any

So that we can free, for God’s new thing

(and there is a new thing)

The witness is clear and persistent

Paul:  “one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3)

Jesus: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9)

Isaiah:  “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  (Isaiah 43)

And lest we forget, Paul, again

(2 Corinthians 5:17)  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

A lot has happened

More will happen still

Some of it will cling to us

Weigh us down

Some of it will seek to define us

But we are called by the one who make all things new

To take that Kierkegaardian leap of faith

Take the hand of the sacred

And step into what is new

Start again

And again

And again

God is doing a new thing

Can we not see it?

the gift of emptiness

I am made mostly

of coffee and empty spaces

and I wander through each day

seeking

perhaps, simply to stay awake

(hence the coffee)

but seeking

mostly

to let the Sacred dance in the empty spaces

it surprises me sometimes

how many empty spaces there are

in my soul

and I have come to realize, that these spaces

are a gift

they are the places I have chosen

to make room

to make room for the child of Christmas

once upon a time

my soul was stuffed

with ego, and ambition

with the need to please and be pleased

once my soul was littered

with my failures, and disappointments

once I was heavy

with fear, and regret

with greed

with all the miseries of humankind

and I still am

as people call evil good, and good evil

as money is deemed more important than people

as cruelty and retribution are gleefully embraced

and I still am

as I remember how I once failed so miserably

and allow myself to wander into the house of regret

but then

I think of the baby

Yes that one

That peasant boy

Crying for his mother’s breast

That one

Whose parents had to grab him and run

Run, run, run

From hate, from sword, from death

A refugee God

An immigrant God

Coming to me

Asking for space

Asking me to make room

Just a little room

That he might find a place to dwell

Asking only that I let love enter

I think of the baby

And I let go of that mistake

Space

I let go of fear

Space

I let go of anger

Space

Space for the Spirit to move

Space for the wind to blow

For the fire of love to rage

Space

For love to dance

To move through my tattered soul

Empowering

Healing

Restoring

Reconciling

The more space

The more God

The more space

The more grace

The more space

The more love

That is just the way it works

With our Dancing God

Faith as transformational, not transactional

“Only love that continues to flow in the face of anger, blame, and indifference can be called love. All else is simply a transaction.”

                                          Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset

[Faith] should never be merely transactional -it should be transformational

                                          Rasheed Ogunlaru, Soul Trader

_________________________________________________

We do not have a quid pro quo

Transactional

God

That is just not the way the Sacred works

Oh, I know

There is all that covenant stuff

“I will be your God, you shall be my people”

“Thou shalt have no other God!”

“If you obey the Lord, you will be Blessed” (all that stuff in Leviticus and Deuteronomy)

But still

I think that is on us

That is where we go

It has to be a transaction

In order for God to love me, I have to earn it

In order for God to give to me, I have to earn it

That is how our human brains work

We think God thinks the way we think

We think God behaves the way we behave

And so we create (as Anne Lamott said) God in our own image

And we are profoundly and terrible transactional

Yep

There it is

Quid pro quo

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours

You worship me, I’ll give you what you want

If God is transactional

Then God is really poor at math

Because if you look at how Sacred works?

It is not transactional

It is transformational

God creating the world we live in

          (An act of amazing generosity)

God sustaining

          (while we systematically destroy)

God emptying

          (while we are grabbing and grasping)

God coming down to the lowest level to serve

          (while we climb up, on other people’s backs)

God forgiving

          (while we wallow in resentment and retribution)

God reconciling

          (while we are soaked in enmity)

This is not a transactional story

This is not, primarily, quid pro quo

This is a love story

This is a grace story

This is Sacred

Working through creation

Working through Jesus

Working through the Spirit

To transform us

To make us compassionate

And generous

Yes

When we respond to love

We love God

And Love others

And even love ourselves

That is what transformation does!

It makes us new

It makes us people who don’t have to be transactional

In the way we are with God

We don’t have to be fearful

Worried that if we don’t “do it right”

Or have the right”theology”

Or mutter and utter the right “formula”

God will hate us, reject us

And torment us for all eternity

We don’t have to be transactional

In the way we are with others

We don’t have to demand that people become like us

Before we accept them

We don’t have to demand they look and think like us

Before we welcome them

We don’t’ have to demand they somehow meet a definition of “deserving”

Before we feed them

Clothe them

House them

Even as I walk down this path

I can hear the clamoring in my own head and heart

“Yes, but….”

I can feel my soul clawing its way back toward merit theology

Because that is how I have been programmed

By the world

By the church

And yet

The manger

And yet

The cross

And yet

Grace

And that chance

To begin again

And experience God’s new thing

That comes

Not just at the beginning of every New Year

But at the beginning of every new day

That comes

Every moment

I breathe in

Breathe out

In the end there is only God

There is only Love

the work of Christmas

“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

_________________________________________

It is somehow fitting that Christmas morning

Started foggy and cold

It is also fitting that the sun broke through

And flooded the frozen forest

With gold

That is the way Christmas works

Christmas is Love, Light, Laughter

Breaking into the grayness of life

Breaking through the hate

And the fear

The anger

Breaking through all that darkness

And bringing us

Something new

You will hear some cry

Jesus is the reason for the season (and of course Jesus is)

You will hear some cry

Jesus was born to die

Funny how even when God comes

Breaking all the rules

Emptying the God self

To be among us

We still want to go to the old

We still want to make it all a transaction

God can only love us if Jesus dies

We have to respond a certain way, mouthing certain phrases

Believing certain things

In order to be saved from eternal conscious torment

Have we learned nothing from Christmas?

Have we learned nothing from Jesus

The Jesus way is radically non transactional

That is why so many will never really get it

(although they will try, and I expect God will honor that, because that is how God is)

That is why certain leaders

Who understand nothing but “I win you lose”

Who are totally committed to quid pro quo

Will never “get Jesus”

Here is Christmas

Distilled down to its basics

Jesus came, lived, and died to show us the possibilities,

to show us what love can do,

to show us a new (non transactional) way of doing life.

Jesus came to show that God invests in us

In our world

God loves us

Unconditionally

God hopes we respond in love

God hopes his love “rubs off” on us

And makes us people who love

But the bottom line

God loves us

There is no transaction here

There is only grace

And our grateful response to grace

Which changes everything

We can live in grace and not change (sadly)

But we miss out on so much

We miss out on love

We miss out on generosity

We miss out on joy

We miss out on peace

We can live in grace and not change

Or we can live in grace

And like the Magi, go home another way

We can live life immersed in love

Permeated with love

Giving love

Without demands

Without requirements

Just

Because

It is the God thing to do

So in the end it doesn’t matter

What color a person is

What sexual orientation

What nationality

What faith

It doesn’t matter if they have uttered the proper formulas

Or if they have earned, anything

This is the message of Christmas

This is the truth, that underlies it all

“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.”

Merry Christmas

The birth of love

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on the planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn—

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

                        Madeline L’Engle

____________________________________________

The Christmas seasons asks us to embrace such foolishness and paradox

and a most unlikely cast of characters

I wonder indeed, if in this time

The divine synergy of Christmas would be allowed to emerge

That coming together of such disparate and strange elements

Perhaps Joseph would have been arrested for trafficking

As he attempted to transport that poor, pregnant child

Across a state line.

Perhaps they never would have made it to the city

Their Ford Escort stalled by the side of the freeway

Perhaps the manger would have been a dumpster instead of a barn

with the child nestled among cardboard

And half eaten Big Macs.

His birthplace illuminated by blinking neon

Or the flashing lights of a police cruiser.

Perhaps those gathered to see this thing which had come to pass,

And embrace the hope would be the outcasts

The homeless, ragged, dirty hungry ones

male, female, black, white, all

Sober, drunk, high

Young black men, looking over their shoulders for the police

White bearded veterans, their Vietnam caps pulled low over tired faces

People struggling with depression or psychosis, moving slowly

Over medicated, under medicated, hopeless and afraid

Immigrants, fearful

All

Drawn to this place by something

Tugging at their hearts

Only to be dispersed by the wail of a siren

Shattering the stillness

And overshadowing

The wail of frail humanity

Perhaps the magi would not only be late

But never show, arrested by ICE and

Detained in an INS camp

Or trapped on the other side of a wall

Perhaps the innocents would still die

Not by violence, but by neglect

The services they needed to live cut by

Legislators more concerned with power and wealth and ideology

Than with people

And yet, it seems

 the Sacred has a way of being born

In all times

And in all places

And in all people

Even here

Even now

no matter how hard we might try

We cannot keep

The sacred from being birthed

all heaven is about to break loose

“Bethlehem”

Tis the night before

The night before

an odd day

without expectation

no quiet stillness

no starry night

no angel choir

no voice echoing in our chamber of fear

be not afraid

this day we trod

we trod

through the debris of life

head down

merely putting on foot in front of the other

unaware

that all heaven is about to break loose

we think of common things

of bills to be paid

of marriages unraveling

of children struggling

health failing

we think of taxes (damn Caesar anyway)

and of hunger

and cold

we struggle with the hungry ghosts

of fear and greed

we battle with forces within and without

that pull us into

hate, and racism, and exclusion

and so step by tired step

we plod

eyes fixed on the dusty

manure scattered ground

unaware

that all heaven is about to break loose

halting for a moment

at a busy street

to watch a young girl pass by

walking the walk of the very pregnant

a man, her lover,

her husband perhaps,

or maybe her father,

hovering at her side

then walking on again

un-expectant

and

worn

unaware

that all heaven is about to

break loose

be not afraid

Dear God, please reveal to us

your sublime

beauty

that is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere

so that we will never again

feel frightened

my divine love, my love

please let us touch

your face

St. Francis of Assisi

________________________________________

The angels came

They came to Zechariah

and he was afraid

struck dumb with the enormity of the visit

they came to Mary

and she was afraid

although the moment was pregnant with promise

they came to Joseph

and he was afraid

and perhaps puzzled, and even a little humiliated

this was deep stuff

and did God think he, Joseph was a fool?

they came to shepherds

who must have decided that the last batch of wine

had gone a little bad

and who must had looked incredulously at each other

as the skies shone

“Whoa!  Look at that, dude!”

The angels came

and there was fear

but also hope

be not afraid

be not afraid

be not afraid

for you have God all wrong

all wrong

you can be in awe

you can and should be overwhelmed

you should feel the power and presence

and be driven go beyond who and what you are

propelled into a world new

a life new

a heart new

a mind new

but be not afraid

for this God is love

and if you don’t believe it

soon God will prove it

God will come

not growling and threatening

not in power on the clouds

but crying and

reaching for his mother’s breast

a little gift of love

the sacred wrapped up in ragged cloths

and soon, needing to be changed

and you can touch

God’s face

shepherds

Just sit there right now

Don’t do a thing.  Just rest

For your separation from God

Is the hardest work in this world.

Hafiz

_________________________________

dark of night they sat

shepherds

not so noble

not so wise

covered with dirt

and the oil of sheep

a little stinky if all were said

dark of night they sat

perhaps silent

perhaps filling the stony hill

with the sounds of ribald song

dark of night they sat

lowest of the low

with thoughts of God perhaps

or only with thoughts

of cold and hunger

and rejection

perhaps the stars shone

or a brilliant moon

perhaps

I have my doubts

that they were seeking God that night

but God was seeking them

and in that seeking

found

those who simply sat

and watched sheep

looked up in surprise and wonder

reached out dirty hands

and touched God

Jesus, the unexpected

There he is.  In the temple again

Causing trouble

Speaking very differently from other preachers

Speaking with authority about sorrow, anxiety, sickness and death

Penetrating the dark corners of human existence

Shattering illusions

Make no mistake about it

This is a dangerous man

                     Martin Bell, The Way of the Wolf

________________________________________________

There he is in the manger

Surrounded by animals

Surrounded by outcasts and losers

Surrounded by Magi, heretics from afar

There he is already

On day one

Jesus the revolutionary

Hanging about on the fringes of society

God, slumming it

So it began

And it never changed

Interesting isn’t it, how no one of note showed up

When this king was born

No priests

No Sadducees

No Pharisees

No one with power

No one with wealth

Just those outside the circle of blessing

So it began

And it never changed

He called his disciples from the working poor

He hung out with aliens and outcasts

With Romans, and tax collectors

Widows and lepers

The cripples and the mentally ill

He said he came to set the prisoner free

He said he came to heal the sick

And he said he came to find and save lost

But who were the lost?

The manger gives us the answer

Those who did not find their way to the manger were the lost

Those who did not leave all behind and follow the carpenter were the lost

Herod was lost

The Sadducees and Pharisees were lost

The rich were lost

The arrogant were lost

Not the poor,

Not the sinners

Not those who knew they needed saving

Jesus was a minister to the poor

Jesus was a prophet who challenged the very

Structures and ideologies that kept them poor

He redefined lost

He redefined blessed

And nothing has changed

I suspect Jesus is not to be found in the great cathedrals

In the auditoriums of the megachurches

With their smoke and lights

And audio visuals

And pretentious preachers

I suspect Jesus is not to be found in the halls of power

In Congress

Or the White House

Or the SCOTUS

Or in the Board Rooms of big corporations

Or in the corner offices of the obscenely wealthy

Not because Jesus doesn’t want to be there

But because when one is full of power

And focused on wealth

There is little room for “the way”

When one has it all

The last thing one wants, is one who

Calls one to “give it all up”

(Just as the rich young ruler)

The last thing one really wants is “the way” revealed in the manger

The way revealed by Jesus

That way that demands sacrifice

That way which asks us to give all we have and follow

Which asks us to take care of the poor, whether we think they deserve it, or not

And welcome the stranger, whether we are comfortable with them, or not

Which asks us to give to receive

Be to servants rather than rulers

Which asks us to die in order to live

So there he is

In the manger

He looks harmless now

But already the signs are there

This is a dangerous man

Mary, Mary

There is a reason Mary is everywhere. I've seen her image all over the world, in cafés in Istanbul, on students' backpacks in Scotland, in a market stall in Jakarta, but I don't think her image is everywhere because she is a reminder to be obedient, and I don't think it has to do with social revolution. Images of  Mary remind us of  God's favor. Mary is what it looks like to believe that we already are who God says we are.”

                                                              Nadia Bolz-Weber

___________________________________________________________________

Who does God say that we are?

That we are people, much like Mary, who are carriers of God, pregnant with the sacred,

and ready

to Birth God

Ready to be the place where heaven touches earth

Yes, Mary’s role was singular, and yes, she birthed God in a unique and special way

But in those words, which she spoke to Elizabeth

Her story become our story

“My soul magnifies the Lord”

Those words, may say it all.

“My soul magnifies the Lord.”

Magnifies implies make bigger, make greater, enlarge --an image that Mary's burgeoning pregnancy with the messiah certainly makes fitting.  Perhaps it is better to say that to magnify is to make something more easily seen.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” means that through Mary the Sacred became, more visible,

more concrete.  Mary made God more easily seen.  She brought us Jesus, who was the Sacred in our midst. 

I believe that one of the things that Mary is intended to teach us, is that we too are to be souls who magnify the Lord.  That we too are meant to be people through whom the Sacred becomes real.  People who make it so that others can see God more clearly.

If the Bible is a reliable witness, God works through the ordinary, the common, to become present in the world.

It is not through amazing, brilliant, outstanding people that God works

It is through me and through you,

through the way we choose to live our lives and practice our faith, that God makes Sacred Presence felt in this world.

Each one of us, through our words and our actions, through all that we do, magnifies God. We magnify God’s being with our own bodies. We magnify God’s action with our own practices. We magnify God’s word with our words in the world.  We magnify God’s love with our love.

Of course we must be clear.  This is not, ultimately, about us.  God is the one who acts.

What we do is take God’s love and give it hands and feet and hearts and minds. We collaborate with God in the divine actions of lifting up of the lowly, feeding the hungry.

This is “our job”, as those who would follow the Christ

So a good question to meditate on in the remaining time before Christmas might be: how do I magnify the Lord?  How can I, magnify the Lord?

It is through human beings, through human flesh, this fragile and easily broken substance that salvation happens. It is through us that God works. It is through us that God is magnified.

All it takes is willingness

openess

I love the way Madeline L’Engle puts it in the poem, After the Annunciation

This is the irrational season

When love blooms bright and wild.

Had Mary been filled with reason

There’d have been no room for the child.

None of this makes sense

Especially not the idea that we can make God present

That WE can make God present

Us

With all of our problems and failings

All our doubts and fears

Us

Our participation in this miracle

For it is a miracle

Is not logical

Perhaps God should have had better judgement

But God chose us

And all God asks of us

As illogical as it seems

Is what he asked of Mary

All God asks for is our “yes”

But when we say yes

heaven touches earth

here

what happened? after the manger

“Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice old place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad old place, where wickedness flourishes unchecked, where children are murdered, where civilized countries make a lot of money by selling weapons to uncivilized ones so they can blow each other apart. Christmas is God lighting a candle, and you don't light a candle in a room that's already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that's so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are. The light shines in the darkness, says St. John, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

                                                              N.T. Wright, For All God's Worth

________________________________________

What happened to those shepherds

who heard the angels sing?

Who saw the darkness dispelled by light

and hear good news for all

What happened to those

Who haphazardly left their flocks

And stumbled through the darkness

To where the baby lay

Were their lives changed?

Did dream wild new dreams?

Were their lives transformed?

Or did they merely wander back into the hills

Pick up their staffs

And sit once again in the cold stillness

The ardor of the moment cooling

The light fading?

What happened to

those odd assorted souls who happened

by the scene

and awkwardly watched

the sight of a motely crew

gathered around a mother and child?

Were they too touched by angle fire

Did they too wander aimless, pondering?

What happened to the cousins and aunts,

the family gathered upstairs in that warmer cleaner space?

Were oblivious to the wonder underneath their feet?

Or did grace rise and touch the room in which they ate

And argued as families do?

What happened to merchants and kings

And magi from afar

As they wondered near or wonder from afar?

What happened?

Surely the only stories are not those

Of mad kings plotting infant deaths

Of magi fleeing in the dark, another way

Surely stories of refugees flights

And violent oppression are not all we have

Surely someone became kinder

Someone loved

Someone forgave

Surely someone felt hope

And someone gazed into the now silent skies,

And remembered

For all that happened

And all that did not happen

The world slouches on its way

Still Christmas comes and goes

Still the air is filled with the sound of singing

And lights twinkle as the stars

Still people gather

And make much of a baby’s birth

And gathered to celebrate

And still when all is said and done

The world returns to its ways

Still the powerful plot

Still the poor suffer

Still fear and hate lead to violence

And yet!

This is not all that we have

An empty celebration that when all is said and done

Leaves the world the same dark place

Yes, the world is indeed “a shockingly bad old place,

where wickedness flourishes unchecked,

And yet

At Christmas the light came into the world

A light in the darkness

A light to show us the way

A light that at times may seem to only flicker

But never goes out

The light of hope, and peace, and joy

The light of love

which is kindled in our hearts

so that sometimes we are kinder

and sometimes we love

and forgive

and give

And sometimes

Even as the light shines in a world murky with darkness

And gaze into the now silent skies,

And remember

And hope

the wrong shall fail, the right prevail

“And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

the Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!”

― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

__________________________________________________

Today I am adulating

Today I am being a responsible adult

Feeding my animals

Cleaning my house

Answering my emails, most cursed things

It is not what I wanted to do when I grew up

I had visions of treks through jungles

Adventures in the far north

I would have a life of adventure

and danger

and triumph

this cowboy, sailor, doctor, fireman

this person who would grow up

significant

respected

loved

admired

hero me

instead I am writing progress notes

and emptying waste baskets

and contemplating shoveling the side walk

Today I am adventing

I want to be Christmasing

I had dreams of being in a Hollywood movie

And that I would be the star of this movie

What a delusion, that

This short haired arthritic limping gnome

Should be the star of a Hollywood movie!

And I am not

I am not immersed in Christmas

Where miracles happen

And love wins

No, I am adventing

I and walking in that dark impatient time

Where resolution is yet to come

My soul resonates with Longfellow

Who beloved wife burned to death

Beloved son wounded by war

Country divided

Bowed his head

In momentary despair

And I too cry

"There is no peace on earth,

For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Not I am not Christmasing

I am Adventing

I am plodding toward Bethlehem in the darkness

And the cold

And yet

I do believe Christmas will come

I do believe that love will prevail

But advent reminds me, that this victory is a somber and costly one

As Bonhoeffer in the cold world of Nazi Germany

A world not that unlike our own, once said

Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness

If we want Christmas

We will have to show up, not in the halls of power

Not in the Capital or the White House

Posing for pictures with the mighty

But in the streets

With the homeless

At the border, with the caged

in the hospital, with the cancer riddle child

in the nursing home, with the abandoned woman or man

whose children never come

If we want Christmas

We will have to fight for it

Not with the weapons of hate

But with the weapons of love

We fight for Christmas

When we feed the poor

When we fight for housing, first

When we welcome the homeless to sleep in our pews

When we say Happy Holiday, and Happy Hanukkah

And have a blessed Kwanza

We fight for Christmas when we hug the person

Who disagrees with us passionately

Call me a fool (many do)

Call me naïve

But even while I am adventing

And stumbling my way through the dark

I believe the light will come

And with Longfellow I affirm

God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

the Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!”