Category Archives: Christmas

Voices of Joy Advent IV and Christmas and New Year

29 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in advent, Christmas, joy, New year, singing, Uncategorized

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A voice of joy! Advent began with a voice on one crying…in a wilderness! And we take a turn into the season with a voice of joy! I am relying heavily on joyful voices in this season, Music and words combine to life my spirit above the oppressive sounds of so much that is being given attention.

So I have heard Joy in the voice of children in productions of “Beauty and the Beast.” I have heard Joy in concerts downtown at Disney Hall, first all of the Bach motets, then the voices of Chanticleer. My Facebook community supplies me amply with music of Joy of many kinds–country western, early Renaissance, piano and cello, hundred voice choirs, a capella ensembles. On Christmas Eve by candlelight, we heard in variegated voices the story of the birth of Jesus into this world and what it means; it led us to stand and sing together “Joy to the World.”

And then we were stunned at dawn to get a familiar voice on our phone on Christmas morning telling us to go look on our front porch–and there to our shock and surprise was our complete Florida family awaiting to say Merry Christmas and to feed and love us, through this festival week. It has been followed with singular voices of Joy: laughter of cousins, hilarious remembering between siblings, excited regaling with new experiences, eager recitation of encounters with something special–all Joy! Certainly the we have shared the Joy of Christmas with enthusiastic voices this season.

I am convinced that I am to bring a voice of Joy into the new year. It is counter-intuitive if I become saturated with the voices of the world around us–news, op-ed pieces, and Cassandra like predictions of the doom to come. However, the voice of those who are seeking Spirit and intending to live with its energy are filled with hope,  perseverance, compassion and imagination because of what we are celebrating this Christmastide. Those are the choruses of which I would like to be a part. I anticipate with expectation the anthems of those who are joining their journey of Spirit with their intention to be part of the healing of the world, whether in political demonstration and action, or in service to those without resources or agency. I align my heart and voice with those who croon softly to the person in pain and despair, or to the ones who feels as if there is no place to call home. I accept the lowering registers of my own voice to calibrate it to the song I have been given to sing for now: God is here, does not leave us, nor can anything separate us from Divine Presence and Care. There is Joy in all!

Good Christian souls, rejoice! with heart and soul and voice…

In this New Year I am adding my voice to the band of angels and saints who hear and care for the voices crying in the wilderness, and then go on to bring a more hopeful, Joyful song of “Peace on earth, good will to all!”

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3 Gifts of Epiphany for the New Year

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Christmas, Epiphany, faith, Hope, Love, Uncategorized

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In these 12 days of Christmas, I have felt very much like the Little Drummer Boy, singing, “I have no gifts to bring…” or Christina Rossetti in the carol, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” “What can I bring him, poor as I am…?” We are heading toward Epiphany where the Wise Ones bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, gifts both mystical and practical, elegant and marvelous. And I feel as if my cupboard is bare after this season of healing and world trauma. However, in the way that the Spirit seems to work with me, I keep encountering at every turn this finale of the Love Hymn in I Corinthians, King James Version: “And now abideth these three–faith, hope and love…” And I am delighted–in spite of my recovering health, in spite of the losses in the past year, in spite of the predictions and prognostications about the state of the world and what will happen next, I do have those three things; they abide–in me and in the world.

I continue to have Faith. I experienced Holy Presence all through my surgical process and the aftermath, in each step of recovery and setback, even or especially in faith-filled folk who come by me, in person or on-line. I can wear with integrity my ring that holds Lady Julian close to my heart, saying, All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

I have Hope, on which I mused in during Advent, not in particular outcomes or even in absence of chaos and terror, but in that Holy Presence who never leaves us or forsakes us, and whom the author of Hebrews tells us, often has a better idea for our future than we can imagine, ask or think.

And I have Love. I have been given so much love in my life–some of it well-intentioned but poorly executed, some of it unable to show up all the time, some of it intuitive and caring from afar–but I am loved, not the least of all by the One who calls me by name, and to Whom I belong. And Love begets Love; out of the love I have been given, I am free to love those I am given–longtime friends falling on hard times, new friends who need some ballast, those who are nearly ever noticed by those they serve, those who seem to be difficult by character–learning how to pray that they will be blessed and have their deepest needs satisfied.

So on this Epiphany I come to the Holy One bringing my gifts, maybe more truly giving back what I have been given–Faith, Hope and Love–with the prayer that they will deployed in the places most useful, healing the places most sore, and giving Life and Love to a world which seems to have a short supply of any of them. I pray that these gifts will enrich us all in the world that God loves!

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Christmas Joy!

25 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in beauty, Christmas, earth, gratitude, joy, Light

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Anne Sexton proclaims that there is Joy in all! What more evidence can there be than the blossoming of five irises, with at least five to come amid the long-desired rainfall that appeared in these last days of Advent! Christmas comes replete with tidings of comfort and Joy in the arrival of the Baby Jesus, who at this celebrated moment is only a hope, a possibility and a dream! And I have done all that I can, both to make my beloved ones comfortable and Joyful, and to enter into the Joy myself, sometimes with mixed success. Yet the signs of Hope throughout Advent have kept pushing me to stay awake to the places and ways which, in the words of C, S. Lewis, “…cheerfulness keeps breaking in!”

The signs and the blooms of Joy on this day are everywhere–children singing loudly, even on key, the old Christmas carols with open hearts and wide eyes; thoughtful and prophetic pastors who don’t settle for the same old/same old messages and routine; caring friends who acknowledge my limitations this year, and come round in message or person anyway; posts from those who are feeding the hungry, expanding their giving on behalf of the vulnerable, writing and marching for both justice and mercy for the little ones.

Yet, many among my acquaintances want to make sure that I know that there are many for whom Joy is not readily accessible, and I am deeply aware of that. Hospitalizations, freak accidents, sudden losses, fractures of personal connections that can’t seem to heal, all make Joy a slippery commodity. And the “weary world!” Good grief! what can we say to the callousness, the arrogance, the brutality and the self-absorption that makes up the Slough of Despond through which we are muddling these days!

I submit once again the Joy–the Joy that is heralded by the angels–is not connected to the era in which we live, the location we inhabit, our status within or without families, even our body’s frailty. It is a gift from the Holy One, reflecting that above, around and through all we are created by God. The write of the Psalms remind us that in Holy Presence is fullness of Joy (Psalm 16:11). Two themes go throughout sacred testament–1) Joy is gift of God, even as it was when Christ was born, and 2) humans have the capacity to choose it, even when they are in dire straits and unhappy. I cannot choose for anyone else, but  I can make it my aim in my quest to keep the Light shining to choose joy. Karl Barth says, ” Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”

And so on this Christmas Day I again commit myself to choosing and practicing Joy–in the healing process my body is in, in the disappointment in what people do and don’t do, among the miasma of doomsday prognosticators–Joy because in Holy Presence is fullness of joy, and Christmas comes to tell me that the Christ will never leave or forsake. That belief and ground in Joy is what keeps me centered when I am called to lobby for mercy for the poor, to protest injustice for the displaced, to advocate for those who do not have the privilege I have as a white, heterosexual person with education. .

Joy to the world…God has come and given me power to share and spread that Joy!

 

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Longing for Light to Follow

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Christmas, Epiphany, Hope, illumination, pilgrimage, wisdom

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Today is Epiphany, the daychihulyTampa when the Church remembers and celebrates the arrival of the wise ones who have been following the Light in the shape of a Star in the East and now have stopped over that place where the Child was. I do not envy them the journey over miles and years, but I do envy the vision and clarity of the Star that took them right to the place where their hearts longed to be.

In reading one of my gifts from Christmas, Alexander McCall Smith’s The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine, I saw myself reflected in Mma Precious Ramotswe’s self-reflection after her colleague suggests she might want a holiday:

Mma Ramotswe looked down at her hands, folded passively on her lap. Was she getting stale? She looked at her shoes. at her faithful brown shoes with their broad soles and their flat heels. Were these the shoes of a stale person?  (21)

My shoes are not broad, brown and flat, but  I am wondering if parts of me are stale. I do know that when I have been musing on this part of the Christmas season, my heart is lightened when I think of this part of the ancient story of Epiphany, of wisdom meeting new life, of coming into new territory, of being filled with joy. And I have a longing for some of that lightness.

I didn’t make New Year’s resolutions this year, I usually don’t. However, I did find myself praying for Light and Hope, but the prayers were nestled in vows I took long ago when I was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament. In those vows I promised each time I recited them at each new call,  that I would seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love. So my prayer this year has become that I will encounter the Star of Light that will burnish my energy, intelligence, imagination and love, so that they more shine more brightly in me and through me to the people I am given to care for. I am aware that after thirty years, each of those intentions might have become stale–or maybe are just in need of re-calibration after an encounter with the Holy One.

In this decade of my life my energy is not the same as when it needed to meet the requirements of the rhythms of life that tried to balance my calling at church or seminary, commuting, raising children, caring for aging parents and keeping loving alive. My brain does not retain new information, nor does it remember familiar facts with the facility it once did. In some ways my imagination is more lithe and fantastic than it used to be, now that I put it to use only with taking flight with grand-children or hoping for outcomes not constricted by by-laws; that one glistens more brightly. And there is love! Always the Word–the greatest of these, always coming to me from Grace. But in some places and times it has felt more taxing. Weariness in well-doing has tarnished some of that first love; or that sense that one has lived long enough to say with the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and it seems that no new thing to savor, to take delight in, no new face to enchant with affection.

And so my prayer on this Epiphany is that the Star will shine in me, for me and through me:

Star of Wonder, shine on and energize my body and spirit so that I can make the treks over mountains and deserts to offer who I am to those who are ready to receive me.

Star of Beauty Bright, enliven my synapses and retrieve my skill sets, so that I can continue to bring ideas and strategies to the tables of conversation and cooperation in the things that make for peace.

Star of Night, shine through my dreams so that my imagination will be further illuminated with things that my eyes have not yet seen or my ears have not heard, but that add beauty and grace to the world around me.

Star of my Heart, keep the fires of Love burning, stoked and warm, brilliant and comforting, as long as my heart will beat.

In the name of that Bright and Morning Star, Amen.

 

 

Personal photo from Dale Chihuly Center, St. Petersburg, FL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmastide

28 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in Christmas, gratitude, Hope, paying attention

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Angels, announce with sounds of mirth, Christ who brings new life to earth. Set every peak and valley humming with the word, the Lord is coming. People, look east and sing today: Love, the Lord, is on the way. (Eleanor Farjeon)

My usual Christmas season routine was upended by many unusual things this year. I did not get to the anchoring concerts and gatherings that have lighted my way to the festival as I have had in previous years because of commitments and demands that were necessary for such a time as this. However, I did not lose the thread of the coming of Advent that was carried in the words and deeds of those angels who “set every peak and valley humming with the word, the Lord is coming.”

That humming came in words from the liturgy at the Blue Christmas service:

Lord, it is night. The night is dark. let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you. The night is quiet. let the quietness of your peace enfold us all dear to us, and all who have no peace. Keep us in the truth that night heralds the dawn. Let us look expectantly to a new day, to new joys, to new possibilities.   (New Zealand Prayer Book).

The humming also rose from the bottom of the valley of the shadow in San Bernardino and Redlands when courageous and tenacious police and leaders of faith communities spoke and implemented wise words and actions in the face of overwhelming anguish and sorrow. Those communities were testimony to all of us of the way that new life could begin to come out of tragedy.

The angel humming grew sonorous as I heard the personal reflections of those who had emerged from sadness and doubt into trust and into joy, even though they still faced daunting challenges–personal and systemic. And the chorus swelled as grace and peace were carried in on seasons’ greetings from far and wide–some from hilltops, some from deep trenches, but all following the Star of the Light they knew.

I felt some days as if I were inside of a copper prayer bowl whose rim had been set vibrating by the angelic touches that alighted there. I received some personal touches–an affirmation from a former parishoner whom I had not ever known who still remembered my sermons and prayers, a word of thanks for something I didn’t know that I had done, a fresh introduction to the Art of Advent in a lecture and Powerpoint presentation given by my husband at church, and loud and enthusiastic singing of “Joy to the World” with my seven year old grand-daughter. I celebrated with gratitude the faithful, steady offerings of pastors, leaders, caregivers, service people who did not miss a beat with the increased tempo of the time of year, steadily providing what was needed and more to prepare the hearts of seeking to receive the One who was and is coming.

In many years of my life it has fallen to me and I have chosen to be the leader of the band of angels what “make Christmas happen,” as pastor, wife, mother, grandmother and friend. This year my call was to pay attention–to hear what I heard, see what I saw, feel what I felt–as many other angels set the hills and valleys and humming for the season. In these next days of Christmastide, I am living in the echoes of the melodies and harmonies set out for me in so many forms and media, allowing me to muse on the good news that I have celebrated, by reflecting, praying, pondering and savoring what it means. I know that it is life-giving, vision-casting and hope-replenishing.

God has blessed us–every one!