Author Archives: Advent 2011 Guest Writer

Bearing Unbearable Love

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

And we are put on earth a little space
that we might learn to bear the beams of love

—William Blake

I ran across this verse yesterday, and it felt just right for these last days of Advent. The time preceding Christmas provides exactly this: a little space to focus anew on learning to bear the beams of love. There are several ways to bear something, of course.

  • One meaning is to bear a child, or a crop; to bear fruit.
  • Secondly, to bear can mean to tolerate, carry, or accept a burden or condition.
  • And thirdly we can bear witness, or a gift; to share with others.

Mary must have wondered how she was to bear the beam of love that grew within her. She had the need to bear love in several meanings of the word. Her child would enter the world as we all do, she must give birth. But before that, Mary had to bear a difficult and lonely “beam of love” in carrying an illegitimate child. Only Mary really knew that she had been given a sacred mission; Gabriel did not write her a glowing letter of reference to explain it all to Joseph.

Her story told in Luke leaves out her inner conversation about her predicament. She was so young, we are told, unlikely to have had a lot of education. She was a pious young woman. But what would any of us make of a visit from the angel Gabriel announcing that we are ‘favored by God?’ And what kind of ‘favor’ is this when a young girl must bear the long months of a pregnancy by some invisible father?

Mary bore the news of the destiny she was offered by God, but not without distress.

“She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean” after Gabriel trumpeted “Rejoice, you who enjoy God’s favor! The Lord is with you” to her, moments before.

Beams of love are sometimes so unusual, surprising, or foreign to us, that they seem unbearable, at first. All we can manage sometimes is to be, like Mary, ‘deeply disturbed.’ We ask ourselves what this new offering means, especially one that feels so strange. Beams of love that arrive out of order from the way we have imagined reality to function are the worst. “But how can this come about,” Mary asks, “since I have no knowledge of man?” she wonders. I do not imagine Gabriel’s answer was immediately satisfying or comforting to Mary. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow.” No sane woman of any era expects this far-fetched explanation will satisfy her questioners.

But somehow, Mary is convinced to receive, to tolerate, to accept this strange beam of love that apparently feels genuine to her, even though dangerously defying all reason and social convention. She began to bear the beams of God’s love when she said “Let it happen to me as you have said.”

When Mary visited Elizabeth, she shared the revelation she received, and the news of her pregnancy with her cousin. But in Luke’s telling, Mary’s stayed quiet about her news with others, as far as we know. We can imagine how sensitive this pregnancy was for Mary. Joseph must have been terribly unhappy, knowing as he did that he was not the child’s father.

When Mary’s moment came to give birth to a real life, fussy, squirming baby Jesus, Mary bore her “beam of love” into plain sight. Jesus was a child who needed milk and warmth and cleaning just as all of us needed at the start of our earth careers. Mary bore her beam of love into flesh and blood, into smiles and speech, into a person who would reveal love in a fresh and unprecedented way to us all.

Which way am I meant to bear the beams of love more fully today? Is a new thing about to be delivered through me? Am I to labor and cry to bring forth some new creation? Am I able to carry a bit of compassion to another living being, and oh so gently lift someone’s heart? Or am I simply in that place of learning to bear the magnificent beam that is given to me, by letting loose of my own stubborn notion of what love should look and feel like, making room for the real thing? Might I make room at the inn for a love that melts away foolish striving and angling for power, that beam of love that transforms the heart to a radiant source of the very same warming glow?

For when our souls have learned the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear his voice
Saying: `Come out from the grove, my love and care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice!’

—William Blake

***

Carol Toben

The Word is Near You

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

—Romans 10: 5-13

“The word is near you, on your lips and on your heart.”

Wow! On our lips and on our hearts! But Christmas is closer—only three days away!—and you may be in the midst of the last-minute frenzy. Two days left to shop, wrap, bake, travel… not to mention the Christmas Eve service, pageant, and Christmas morning service. Isn’t there a law against Christmas falling on Sunday? There just isn’t enough time!!! STOP. “The word is near you, on your lips and on your heart.”

Why are we doing this? Why are we engaged in this craziness of getting ready? We are supposed to be waiting for the birth of a baby. Babies come when they are ready. Mary had craziness going on around her: a census, traveling while pregnant, packing supplies and food, not knowing where they would stay, not knowing if she would deliver her child during the trip. We can’t know how she felt, but we can guess that she felt some craziness about getting ready. But she did it; she trusted the word on her lips and in her heart. God had promised her a son, and she trusted the word of God.

Maybe we can sit back and wait for that baby. Isn’t that what Advent is really about? Let’s stop and feel the word near us, on our lips and in our hearts. Let’s concentrate on what we can do to celebrate the gift that has transformed the world; the gift that is still transforming the world through the power of God’s love; the gift that is in us and around us and that works through us. Let’s celebrate that transformative work of the ever-creating God.

You’ve probably bought enough. The wrappings only stay on for moments. (I have a friend who only wraps the top of boxes!) Do we really need an extra dozen cookies? Christmas cards? Call them New Year’s greetings because they’ll get read more thoroughly after Christmas.

Let’s concentrate of sharing the love on our lips and on our hearts, the wildly extravagant, never-ending, bigger-than-we-can-dream-of love of God, incarnate in a baby, quietly, humbly, born to give us hope and love forever.

***

Terri Gibbons is a member in discernment in the United Church of Christ. She is a graduate of the Claremont School of Theology and plans to serve her ministry as a Chaplain for end-of-life care.

God Asks Much

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

Luke 1:39-56

As I read today’s scripture I am struck by several things. This scripture, like my own schedule this week before Christmas, has too much going on. There are so many important lessons in this scripture, or at least possible lessons, that the temptation is to try to wring every bit of meaning and activity out of it. And in the process, I risk doing a poor job at all of them. That is always the risk at this time of year, we try to do so much, to wring every moment of joy, every perfect Christmas activity or experience out of each moment and each day, that we risk not savoring or appreciating any of them. And so I will narrow my focus in this scripture to just a few things.

First, Mary could not face it alone. God had asked much of her—that she would be an unwed mother, who well might lose her fiancé as a result of the pregnancy, that she would be the mother to the Messiah, the long awaited savior of Israel, and that she would allow the babe to grow inside her until the time came for him to be delivered. Facing all of this, Mary could not do it alone. She had to seek out Elizabeth who was facing a similar situation. Elizabeth was not carrying the Messiah, but Elizabeth was carrying a child also long foretold and much awaited. And in the presence of another who understood, Mary sings. Mary’s song of rejoice reflects what the Messiah was supposed to do: to bring down the powerful, lift up the lowly, feed the hungry, and to send the rich away empty. Mary sings of these things as present realities, things that have already happened—God has done them. 

God sometimes asks much of us too. I realize that I am, like Mary, asked to let the Messiah grow inside of me, not as a baby to be born, but to grow inside me so others can see the face of Christ. As a disciple, I am to grow in my faith, to let that part of me that is in the image of God, that part of me that is my place in the body of Christ, to let that part inside me grow and grow, to let Jesus grow inside me, until there is new birth.

And there is much risk. Following God’s will for us requires risking that others will reject us. When we do what God asks of us, instead of what the world expects, we risk rejection even by those closest to us. Being a Christian is counter-cultural. As Christians we are the ones call to bring down the powerful, lift up the lowly, feed the hungry and send the rich away empty. These are not society’s values, they are God’s. Mary sang of radical change as if it had already occurred. But in this Advent 2011, we can see that there is still so much to do. And yet, the babe is growing and preparing to be born, in each of us.

And that brings me back to my first point—Mary could not face it alone. Neither can we. This Advent, put on your list, along with the other many things to do, time to gather with others to sing, to rejoice, to support each other as we prepare for the radical change that comes with carrying the Christ child inside.

***

Rev. Ann Thomas is the senior pastor at Griffith United Methodist Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she is working to renew and revitalize this downtown congregation through spiritual renewal, social justice work and missions.  A recent graduate of Claremont School of Theology, Ann practiced law in Las Vegas for 18 years before entering full-time ministry and seeking ordination.  She was commissioned in June 2011 and is seeking full ordination in The United Methodist Church.

Hannah, Mary, and Miraculous Motherhood

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

1 Samuel 2:1-11
Luke 1:26-38

This Advent season, I have been reflecting on how thin is the line between life and death, between being and non-being. In my work as a hospital chaplain, I wait with families as someone they love crosses that line, a time that is bathed in mystery and wonder. But more personally, in the past month I have celebrated birth with two of my closest friends, and I have mourned the death of my unborn niece, lost to my brother and his wife at just twenty weeks. What a painfully exquisite juxtaposition it has been.

Most striking to me is that the division between life and death is the work of a single moment—of a last breath, of conception, of miscarriage—and of many moments—the length of an illness, nine months of pregnancy, a lifetime of hardship and joy. What tilts the balance one way or the other? Why does one person survive an illness while another does not? Why does one woman give birth to a healthy baby while another aches with emptiness? How do we make sense of reality transformed in the merest breath of time?

I hear echoes of these questions in our readings today, which include the words of two women whose lives radically change in a moment. They come to motherhood at very different times in their lives but by equally mysterious and miraculous means. Hannah has suffered years of infertility and endured the vicious barbs of other women, especially her husband’s other wife Peninnah. She has passed countless nights in tears and deep sorrow to the point that she cannot eat. Then, after years of fervent prayer, the priest Eli blesses her petition, the Lord remembers her, and she conceives and gives birth to Samuel, one of God’s prophets. After a lifetime of struggle, in a moment, Hannah’s barrenness becomes fertile. Her “death” crosses the thin line into new life.

Mary knows no such struggle and heartache when the angel Gabriel visits her. She has scarce begun to even think of babies and parenting when, in a moment of annunciation, she changes from a lowly girl into the mother of the Most High. Puzzled and frightened, she hesitates only briefly before saying yes to God and beginning the march of events that will culminate in another passage between life and death.

And as they walk the narrow edge of childbearing, both Hannah and Mary sing hymns to God, of favor found and enemies conquered, of faithfulness rewarded and status reversed. In God they find the source of life, the deliverance of the poor, the light of peace. And in death, darkness, barrenness, and pain they find God.

Perhaps my Advent musings, then, have led me to nothing more profound than to say with Hannah and Mary that God is in all moments. But perhaps that is also the most profound truth we can ever proclaim—that God is in all life, and God is in all death, and God is in the whisper of an instant that divides the two. So as we wait through these final days before the Christ child is once again in the manger, reflect for a time with me on all of the fragile moments of death and of life and fully know that God is there.

***

Sarah Green is a per diem chaplain at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell in New York City. She is a candidate for ordination as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a graduate of Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, CA.

Waiting on the Lord

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

Backstory

Two years ago, when I wrote this, I found myself in a very fearful waiting place. I was without a job, without any prospects, and with the knowledge that my money would soon run out while in California. It was nearing a time when I would need to pack my bags and head back to the East Coast to begin again. This was the very last thing I had wanted to do that that time.

Waiting on the Lord

Waiting on the Lord? I suck at it.

Yes, for all the times I’ve sat with families and patients waiting for a test result, a surgical outcome, pain medicine, a trauma doctor to come and give some news—for all the times I’ve prayed for God to make me a peaceful presence, a non-anxious presence, when my life is on the line, more often than not, I crack.

And that’s okay.

My goal here is not to chastise myself over ‘cracking’ or my impatience or my misguided thinking that I can tackle the problems of the world (or at least my little world) alone.

I’m here to wrestle with this—it’s usually in this wrestling, this struggle (la lucha) that God most clearly speaks to me, and hopefully to anyone else who needs to hear what He has to say.

I’ve wanted to write this, to struggle with this waiting on the Lord since Monday night, as I drove home from my friend’s house.

The anxiety that I had fought so hard to keep at bay crept up and took me by surprise. Two weeks and I may be packed up and heading back East! The thought gripped me by the throat and squeezed, hard! Now, to those in the Northeast, I’m also not writing this to do a whole East vs. West comparison or to say one sucks and that the other is perfect. This is not what this is about.

So this thought is choking the life out of me and I’m way past panic mode when—finally!—I remember. My life, my future, my everything is in God’s hands. One would think that this new thought would tear me from the hands of despair and bring me some relief. Not quite so. Not yet, at least. I think my dialogue with the Almighty went something like, “Oh my God, no. Really?” “Really, I’ve got this. It’s all okay.” Except it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t okay. I was and have been scared shitless, sleepless and at times grumpy at others. Sorry Mom, Dad, and [insert your name].

It was anything but okay.

Still, in my own infinite wisdom (laugh here, please), I pushed on. “I can do this. No worries. It’s all under control,” which of course it wasn’t, and I was slowly driving myself insane. Everything is in God’s infinitely capable hands.

‘But I’m scared,’ I heard myself whisper.

Of course, I’m scared. It’s scary. Uncertainty and a looming unknown are both scary potentials. Words to many songs came into my heart. Knowing that giving voice to these, and to the prayer that was in the song, would make me emotional, I found myself resistant at first and I also knew that surrendering my heart, my soul, my hopes, and my fears to God was the very best thing for me. I also remembered that “throughout the day we may need to surrender our will repeatedly. This can be especially true while struggling to let go of expectations” (Opening Our Hearts, Transforming Our Losses, 46). And what was I in need of doing but letting go of expectations and outcomes in regards to my job search and my drive to stay in California?

I sang, I prayed. I pranged. I did it honestly, openly, and vulnerably. And yes, there were tears. First came the worship song, “The Everlasting God”:

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord…

—But I don’t want to!

We will wait upon the Lord…

— But I don’t have time to!

And again, until all my fearful resistances were silenced. Until I pranged it right through:

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our strong deliverer
You are the everlasting God
the everlasting God
You do not faint
You won’t grow weary

The words came and suddenly my history of waiting, my history of being delivered, was before me. Call it a documentary of God’s salvific work in my life running through my head, my heart, and my soul. A strong witness that God—the one holding my life, my everything in his hands—is indeed the defender of the weak, the comforter of those in need and the one who will lift me, and all of us, on wings like eagles’.

I felt my heart change. I felt secure; surrounded by the love of God and as I was changed, so changed my song:

I have decided,
I have resolved,
to wait upon You Lord.

It is the only thing I can do. It is the only thing I can ever do, and when the waiting is difficult, when it feels impossible, I can ask God to help me. The song/prayer (sayer?) goes on:

My rock and redeemer,
shield and reward,
I’ll wait upon You Lord.

I will wait with the help of God, my rock. I cannot do it alone. I cannot do anything alone. It’s foolishness for me to think that I can, and yet I know I will think so again and again (and again). And again I will need to ask God for help; I’ll ask for God to dim the lights and roll the film, allowing that glorious documentary to play on a larger-than-life screen. Except this time a clip of me in my car, wrestling as I turned onto the southbound Interstate 15; tearful, fearful and resistant, will have been added, as will the song of my heart rising high to the heavens and the everlasting God’s graceful, merciful response.

As surely as the sun will rise
You’ll come to us.
Certain as the dawn appears,
You’ll come.
May it be so.

Epilogue

Oddly enough, I got home that night, checked some random job postings and stumbled across something I had never seen before. I applied the next day and am going to be arranging for an interview on Monday. Thanks to all those who have kept me in prayer! And now, two years later I remain in California, have that job that I found that night, remain relatively impatient and still struggling to wait on the Lord, but I have another memory of God’s hand in my life to turn to when the waiting begins to be too much.

God came then in this reflection, that very night even!

God is coming to us in this holy season.

God will continue to come to us in all our needs.

***

Donna Batchelor is a hospice chaplain and youth pastor in San Diego County, CA.

Stop. Look. Listen.

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

shining flowers in the sunlight

Psalms 24, 29, 8, 84
Isaiah 42:1-12
John 3:16-21
Ephesians 6:10-20

Take heed of the old adage for crossing the street: “Stop. Look. Listen.” Three simple directions that can assuredly help you see the glory that is around you! Finding what stirs your soul and reconnects you to your sacred center is as individual as a fingerprint. The Scriptures for this day in the advent season are dripping with awe and longing for the beauty and promises of God. What fills your spirit to its brim? What makes you want to sing out joyfully with a huge grin on your face? Imagine it and then send out your praises to the Divine! Share beauty, glory, and gladness in this sparkly season of Christmas! A season that reminds us that God is with us. Advent represents God’s light entering into our darkened world. We should smile and allow that light to fill our days, bless our interactions with others and spread warmth to all we encounter.

***

Kelley Wheat-Rivers earned her masters degree in Pastoral Care and Counseling from Claremont School of Theology. She is now a Chaplain and Bereavement Coordinator at Liberty Hospice and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, both in Wilmington, NC.

Advent Welcome

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

What a great time to read this story again!

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

For many are invited, but few are chosen.

—Matthew 22:1-14

Are you widening the welcome this advent?
The guest list is not for us to choose.
It is not for us to decide.
As a new church start, how to we decide whom to invite?
When do we say you are not welcome here? There are so many people looking for light…
Once I knew a man who wore women’s clothing to church.
He was going through the therapy to become a woman and it was going to happen on my watch. He had three young children that he was raising alone. And soon he would be a she.
I was honored to be a friend to him.
But the church as a whole couldn’t tolerate what was happening.
No matter how hard we believed all would be well, wellness was not to be had!

She had her operation but ended up leaving our church.
She said she just did not feel the welcome I had wished for.
She cried with me when she told me she had to leave
and I cry every time I remember her disappointment.
Why do we think can control the light? Why are we such hypocrites?
I wonder what would happen if we would just let go…
For me, I am going to widen the welcome and let God fly this year
I am going to let go of all of my fears.
It’s about time….

***

Michele Mellott, M.Div., is a graduate of Claremont School of Theology, a Member in Discernment with the United Church of Christ, and is starting a new church start called All Creatures UCC in Arizona.

What the Lectionary Doesn’t Say This Advent

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

Advent in Scotland. I think that Scotland is a country made for Advent: the outside temperatures—and I mean the outside low temperatures—the lack of sunshine or simply blue skies, the rain, the mist: everything is on hold, waiting for better times. Reflecting a bit on my Advent in Scotland, I set out to reading the readings that the Catholic Church has for today: a reading from the Book of Isaiah (Is 45:6c-8, 18, 21c-25), followed by Psalm 85:9a, 10, 11-12, 13-14 and the Gospel reading from Luke 7:18b-23. And I could not help it, but I started to laugh.

Why? Well, I noticed immediately the pick-and-choose mentality of the lectionary. Not only are the lectures picked so that they fit with each other, comment on each other or elaborate on each other (and I have to admit the choices are sometimes good), but they also cut up the text into pieces of verses and then present a new whole. In other words, the lectionary does what I always try to avoid: namely hopping from one verse to another, skipping others, and just dealing with the nice verses. After all, we want a smooth reading in the lectionary. But that is not how texts work. Imagine reading Harry Potter’s Deadly Hallows without having read the earlier volumes. One plunges in the story not knowing about horcruxes or not knowing that Dumbledore has died. The story just would not make sense.

So, curious as I am, I checked which verses were deleted. Which dark powers were at work and why? In Isaiah 45, the lectionary has skipped the verses about Cyrus, the Persian king who is portrayed as the rescuer, saviour of the Jews… of course, we don’t want to hear that in our Christian churches. We usually do not consider outsiders to be our saviours, right? Next, the questioning of God the creator who chose Cyrus is deleted. We do not question God, nor God’s choice, right? So why would we incorporate in our readings a Biblical text in which that is said. Last but not least, the reference to other nations that pray to a god that cannot save, that verse as well is deleted from the lectionary. And note that a god that cannot save does not deserve a capital G. In other words, with advent, when listening to the beautiful text of Isaiah, we cannot be reminded of good foreigners, of foreign saviours, of gods that cannot save, and certainly not of dissenting voices questioning the so-called one and only God, with capital G.

Similarly in the Psalm: the beautiful verses in which it is described how God restored the fortunes of Jacob/Israel and how God forgives Israel are not taken up, the somewhat strange verses in which the people again ask to be forgiven—these verses seem strange as they people seem to ask for something that they already received—they too are not read in the liturgies.

There is less cutting in the gospel text. Actually, there has been no cutting at all in this section. John’s question is not shortened and Jesus’ answer is fully produced. So, why is that that we cut, pick and choose, that we skip verses in our texts? Do we avoid looking at things we don’t like? Are we afraid of strangers and foreigners? Can we not deal with the idea that there is maybe a god that can’t save? Similarly, does the omission of the verses in the Psalm which show God’s (or the author’s) irritation with the idea of questioning God point to our not-willingness to see that there could be questioning of God and/or that God does not like it. And why did the lectionary drop the verses that contain the repeated request to be saved? Can we not understand that we liked to hear the same thing twice, or do people get frustrated with repetition?

I think that precisely the omitted verses should be part of the advent readings. Of course, the rest of the readings are nice and sweet and beautiful: God creator of everything, God, the safe-place to be, God proclaiming peace and salvation, God giving benefits, what more can we ask for. But then again, the other elements belong in here as well: we have to learn to deal with the unexpected, with the questioning, with the idea that a god cannot save—whether it is God or god—, with an irritated God, with a people that repeats its questions. All these elements have an essential part in our process of waiting, for in our waiting time, in our waiting rooms, in our not yet being there, we have to reflect on all the things that obstruct or seem to obstruct our going ahead.

***

by Kristin De Troyer

Waiting

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

almost top view of fancy liturgical candles on a gold mount.Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

All this waiting.

I’m tired of waiting.

And here I find myself in an entire season of waiting.

I’m tired of waiting for friends and family to find jobs.

I’m tired of waiting for the housing market to rebound.

I’m tired of waiting for the country to stop arguing about divisive issues with derogatory discourse.

I’m tired of waiting for my denomination to stop fighting to its death over who gets to be a minister and instead start ministering to the wounds of the world—including the ones we ministers have caused.

I’m tired of waiting to find time for ritual artistry, mission vision and sermon creation at the end of the week after the administration and budget balancing work is done.

And now, in this season of waiting and anticipation of the beautiful light of Christmas, it seems there are even more things both to do and to fail to do, more finances to worry about, more details to manage and more necessary distractions.

When did we change from the children who couldn’t wait for Christmas to arrive to the adults who can’t wait until Christmas is over?

How is it we find ourselves hurtling toward the Holy Child each year as one more task to get past?

Just wait until next Christmas, we promise ourselves, it won’t be this way next year!

But why wait?

Start now, with 12 days left until Christmas Eve.

Reclaim THIS Christmas right now.

There really is no need to just wait until next year.

Pause a moment now, yes, wait just a moment, and consider what most evokes the holy to you in this season. Spend another moment and let yourself be surrounded by that particular sense of the holy.

Now, in the 12 days that remain, consider one life-giving activity or tradition or memory from childhood or years past, and find another moment or two to remember it or even reclaim it.

One year, for me, this was to open a set of angel candle chimes from their 99-cent box, build them, light them and watch the angels spin from the rising heat of the candlelight. The table they were on was a mess, but I didn’t care. All I saw was the light and motion, and I heard the faint sound of a Christmas long past that became Christmas present.

What in your church, what in your home, what in your heart would give you a holy moment?

In each day, in those odd moments of reflection or even concern, pause to consider the holy.

Pause to surround yourself with a holy memory or create a holy moment.

Pause with the hope and prayer that come Christmas Eve, your season will already be filled with holy remembrances, holy moments and holy light.

Welcome the Holy Child with your heart already filled with a sense of Divine presence in your life.

We wait each year for the celebration of Divine Light in our lives, yet there really is no need to wait.

The Holy Light shines already.

Divine Creator, in this season of anticipation, guide us toward our hopes for the future fueled by our fondest memories of the past. We pause in prayer and in hope that in any moment time expands to fill with the Holy Light of Divine Love. In your most holy names we pray, Amen.

***

Rev. Karen Clark Ristine is a minister at Mission Hills United Methodist Church. After more than 20 years as a journalist, she entered seminary in 2006 and has been working in ministry ever since. After a lifelong tradition of sending out scores of Christmas cards each year, she was surprised to discover the irony that, as a minister, she no longer seemed to have time to continue that tradition. 

Lost in God

by Advent 2011 Guest Writer

Someone asked, “What is love?” God answered, “You will know when you lose yourself in Me.”

–Jalalal-din Rumi, 13th century Sufi mystic

For the Sufi mystic, losing oneself in God is the answer. In the modern world, though, how many of us can completely lose ourselves in the search for God? Between getting the kids ready for school and feeding our families, working, and volunteering for our faith community, some of us may feel as if we have lost God in the process of living. But it is important to recognize that God is waiting for us to get closer and lose ourselves in God’s loving embrace. Living can be found in losing oneself. But how does one do this?

Like the Jewish mystics, you might lose yourself in the sacred scriptures. You could spend 15 minutes each morning, reading and reflecting on what the words you read mean to you. Perhaps you could journal your thoughts—giving yourself the deadline of Christmas—like a countdown of this holy month, which culminates in the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus. Rejoice in the gift of the one who so loves us. When you awaken on Christmas morning, read your journal and witness a birth of a new you.

Likewise, you might find, like the Sufi mystics, that music and dance is a useful tool for losing yourself in God. Decide today to spend each day rocking out to the music of your choice. Lose yourself in the words and sing at the top of your lungs. Spin around as if you are a Whirling Dervish and feel the loving embrace of God as you meditate on the beauty of the music spread before you—tantalizing your ears and heart. Feel your love of God in your body and lose yourself in this feeling.

This is the month of peace, forgiveness and love. In losing yourself in God, you just may find more of these in your life. Now, that is living!

Prayer:

Dear God, may I find a way to lose myself in you, each day, during this holy month. I recognize that sometimes I am so busy; and I cannot imagine how I can squeeze in another minute, but I desire to love more and thus live more. I covenant to spend time with you each day and, I hope I will find that the greatest gift given to me, when I awaken this Christmas morning, is the gift of life and…love. You said, “…faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13) I believe this, God. I will seek it, starting today. Amen.

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Summer Albayati-Krikeche is a woman who speaks inside and outside of the church. She is a candidate for ordained ministry in the Unitarian Universalist church, and serves as an intern chaplain at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. While studying in seminary, Summer felt that all of the sacred scriptures called us to help the oppressed. Shortly, thereafter, she decided to help those considered the most marginalized in any society—orphans. In 2009, Summer founded Orphan Whispers, a nonprofit that helps orphans in conflict and post-conflict societies, and is currently focusing on the orphans in Iraq.