Tag: Christmas

A Christmas Prayer

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

God, make me more like Mary. So simply radiant in her reply to Your news.

So confident in what You can do, what You will do through her,

to bring forth love into the world.

So faithful to the invitation.

Let me believe as she believed.

And more like the shepherds, attentive to the vulnerable,

my life’s purpose to care.

Teach me to be still,

to acknowledge there are angels in the night sky

and to be as fearless as they were to run and see what they were told,

to leave my place and bear witness to miracles both on earth and above it.

Let me know when an angel calls.

God, let me be like them too, the angels with a song that will not be contained,

joy filling my heart until it spills out in music and laughter.

To be willing to keep telling the news, the good news, the life-affirming news,

God is right here! God is among us!

Let me share the message of hope.

And finally there are the wise men, people. I’d say.

Make me more like them, unwilling to put aside what I know to be true,

to put it all the line and journey the path of stardust because I must.

Because I cannot not go.

Help me to be willing to do whatever is necessary to find the truth,

even if it requires leaving comfort and familiarity,

to bring gifts because I will recognize goodness when I see it.

Let me go where I am led to go.

On this Christmas, O God,

open my heart to Your messages,

my spirit to Your call.

Let me find what You have made possible,

and honor Your miracles of Love.

Checklist

by Rev. Deb Worley

“I Will Light Candles This Christmas”
By Howard Thurman

I will light candles this Christmas;
Candles of joy despite all sadness,
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,
Candles of courage for fears ever present,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all the year long.

At this time of year, we talk of Santa’s checklist:
Naughty or nice?

But this poem generates a different checklist in my mind, a 2020 [and 2021!] checklist:

Sadness? Check.
Despair? Check.
Fears ever present? Check.
Tempest-tossed days and heavy burdens?
Check and, sadly, check.

What a [couple of] years this has been….A year of struggle, a year of chaos, a year of darkness.

In the midst of all of this darkness, the world needs light more than ever. The world needs your light, and my light; the world needs our light. When my light is flickering, perhaps yours can make mine stronger [as it most certainly has!]; when your light grows weak, maybe the light of another can give yours new life. Our world needs light that is shared, so that the light might be multiplied…

Our world needs us to light Thurman’s candles this Christmas, so that we might step into this season and beyond with yet another checklist:

Joy? Check!
Hope? Check!
Courage? Check!
Peace and grace and love?
Check, check, and yes, check!

In this season of darkness, we need light. We need the Light that shines in the darkness and was not overcome. We need the Light of Christ. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

Peace be with us all in this holy season.

Deb

12 Days of Christmas

by Rev. Victoria Ubben

The song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was published in England in 1780 without music (as a fun rhyme or chant) but is probably French in origin. While there are many versions of this song and many stories as to what (if any) meaning there might be to the gifts, the following is the story that my mother taught me. Many scholars of music history today are uncertain of any possible religious meaning to this song. Thus, I cannot back this up with proof from the internet or other sources. This is the story that I was taught and that I have found to be helpful to me. May this be helpful to you and your family as you journey through the Twelve Days of Christmas! 

My late mother taught this easy-to-remember and fun-to-sing carol to my brother and me AND she taught us the symbolic meaning behind each “gift” given from one’s “true love.” She always told us that this carol was written as a catechism song for young Catholics. Each element in the carol is a “code” for a religious reality which children can remember.  Now as adults, we still remember the symbolism that our mother taught us even to this day.  

This is what my brother and I were taught: 

  • The true love one hears in the song is not a smitten boyfriend or girlfriend but Jesus Christ, because truly Love was born on Christmas Day.
  • The partridge in the pear tree represents Jesus because that bird is willing to sacrifice its life to protect its young by feigning injury to draw away predators. The tree represents the wooden cross on which Jesus died.
  • Two turtle doves are the Old and New Testaments.
  • Three French hens are faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13). Other traditions indicate that the three French hens represent the three kings who brought gifts (Matthew 2).
  • Four calling birds are the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
  • Five golden rings represent the first five books of the Old Testament, called the Pentateuch. (“Penta” means “Five.”)
  • Six geese a-laying stand for the six days of creation (Genesis 1-2).
  • Seven swans a-swimming represent the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit: Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy. Another source indicates the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They are the gifts which were to characterize the Messiah (Isaiah 11).
  • Eight maids a-milking are the eight beatitudes (Matthew 5).
  • Nine ladies dancing are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control (Galatians 5).
  • Ten lords a-leaping are the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 & Deuteronomy 5).
  • Eleven pipers piping stand for the eleven faithful Apostles.
  • Twelve drummers drumming symbolize the twelve points of belief in The Apostles’ Creed.

For hundreds of years the Christmas observance didn’t begin until Christmas Eve and didn’t end until Epiphany. So, why stop the gift-giving and the carol-singing on Christmas Day? Join my family and many others as we continue to sing joyous carols (like this one), light candles, and exchange gifts – while remembering and reciting the basics of our Christian faith and passing it all along to our children and grandchildren – for twelve more days!  

Bits of this information is from: 

  1. Ann Ball, Handbook of Catholic Sacramentals.
  2. Fr. Calvin Goodwin, FSSP, Catholic Tradition.

BUT… 

Most of this came from my mother who was committed to passing her faith on to my brother and me. For that, I am so grateful. 

Burning a Yule Log & Looking for a Bright Star

by Rev. Victoria S. Ubben

In a previous city in which I had lived, my friends hosted an annual, festive Winter Solstice party in their home. It was held on or near the winter solstice (which is on or near December 21). Because of my ministry as a pastor of a church, the season of Advent (the four weeks before Christmas) and Christmastide (the 12 days from December 25 through January 5) was a busy time for me. Nonetheless, I always found it refreshing to gather with friends around the yule log and observe the winter solstice…

Just a quick review: the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. After the winter solstice, the days start to get longer. People observed the winter solstice long before Christianity was established. Many Advent and Christmas customs that Christians observe (e.g., Christmas trees and lighting candles) have roots in much older traditions and ancient folk customs that were later absorbed by Christianity. For example, in Scandinavian countries long ago a “yule log” was rolled through the streets then burned in a symbolic bonfire (hopefully, to destroy the sorrows of the past year and bring good tidings of hope and joy to the city and its residents in the future).

… Back to the Winter Solstice party. Each year, guests at this this party were invited to bring a small remembrance (perhaps written on a piece of paper) or a sprig of something flammable (like a piece of a dried stick or a tiny evergreen branch) to place upon the yule log. I always thought about what I wanted to burn – get rid of – from the past year for some significant amount of time before this gathering. As I reflected on the season that had passed, I always had something to burn (either literally or symbolically). Other people at this gathering symbolically put their disappointments, failures, bad choices, addictions, sins, and just “garbage” on that yule log along with me. (I am so glad that this was a communal event and not something that one must do all alone.)

After food, drink, and some readings appropriate for the winter solstice, the strongest people of the bunch would lug that yule log with all our sadness, grief, sorrow, and regret to the huge fireplace in the living room. I would typically recall the lyrics to an old drinking song-turned-Christmas carol that has been adapted over the centuries:

Deck the hall with boughs of holly,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
‘Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Fill the meadcup, drain the barrel,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Troll the ancient Yule-tide carol,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

See the blazing yule before us,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Strike the harp and join the chorus.
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Follow me in merry measure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
While I sing of yuletide treasure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la! *


I usually stood there with tears in my eyes – sometimes with a feeling of regret and sometimes with a feeling of relief as I watched the yule log (with all our collective disappointments upon it) go up in blazes.

Perhaps this year as we all prepare for Christmas, we would be wise to burn our sorrows and sins of 2020 on a yule log… or upon any log… in a cozy fireplace, in a blazing outdoor firepit, even over a flaming candle. What are the things that you would chose to burn up before meeting the Christ child born for us on Christmas morn? Our racism, sexism, classism, and some other “ism” of which we are guilty? The confusion brought upon us by Covid-19 and our 8 months of social distancing? Our stressful Presidential (and other) elections? Please join me in burning up our regrets and disappointments of 2020.

I will be looking up at the night sky on the Winter Solstice and I hope that you will, too. Astronomers call the Winter Solstice of 2020 the “Great Conjunction.” Jupiter and Saturn will be so close to each other that it just might look like the legendary star of Bethlehem over the place where the baby Jesus was born!

Here is a link to a scientifically correct article about what to expect this year on December 21.

As Christmas draws near, look up into the night sky, burn a yule log, raise a celebratory mug of some festive beverage, and reflect upon this familiar piece of scripture (Matthew 2:9-11 NRSV):

“When they [the wise men or astrologers] had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.” Amen.

*Lots of versions of “Deck the Halls” are available. Wikipedia indicates “The English-language lyrics were written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant. They first appeared in 1862, in volume 2 of Welsh Melodies, a set of four volumes authored by John Thomas, including Welsh words by John Jones (Talhaiarn) and English words by Oliphant. The repeated “fa la la” goes back to the earlier Welsh and may originate from medieval ballads.”

Christmas 2019 Meditation

by Bill Lyons

“We are all meant to be mothers of God . . . for God is always needing to be born.”

Meister Eckhart

One Christmas I ventured into the kitchen at Grandma’s house. She and my mom and my aunt were scurrying to clear the table, put away food, and wash dishes, all while chattering about this church friend, that neighbor, or some distant relative’s Christmas letter. Their movements were fluid, fast-paced, and well-rehearsed from years of repetition. I could only imagine their energy before dinner. 

Until that particular Christmas, I had only known the “living room” side of family holidays. The guys sat lazily on comfortable furniture, predicted outcomes of college bowl games, avoided politics (it wasn’t safe then either but for different reasons), and stared at the tree. We kids piled presents neatly at everyone’s traditional seats, so as to be ready the moment our hostesses emerged. How different these two distinct experiences of the same day were!

The Nativity narrative sounds very “living room” to me this year, telling the tale from the guys’ point of view. The Holy Couple’s journey seems to be all about Joseph. The innkeeper pointed to the stable from his establishment’s doorway. Shepherds (almost always males then) experienced the wonder of an angelic birth announcement. Privileged Magi decoded a star’s mysterious meaning and called on the king of Judea before delivering beneficent gifts to a different king’s impoverished family. Yes definitely, a carol-inspiring guys lens on Christmas. I imagine Mary describing Jesus’s birth quite differently.

There can be no question that she was uncomfortable at that point in her pregnancy. Her mother tried to hide her worry while Mary smiled through her own fear and anxiety at the prospect of leaving the familiarity and support network of her hometown. The shifting backbone of a walking donkey is no friend to a widening cervix. We aren’t told exactly when Mary’s water broke, if she thought her back pain was just from the 4- to 7-day trip, or just how long she was in labor. At some point, the contractions got closer together, lasted longer, and wrenched a first baby through a virgin’s birth canal. Where was the epidural, the episiotomy? Were there any experienced mothers or midwives at the manger?! Or was it only an inexperienced Joseph holding her hand, telling her to breathe, that it would be OK, sweating beside her albeit for different reasons. 

Not all births had happy outcomes then – or now. But when they did, when they do, a feeling that ‘everything is right with the world’ arrives too.  Sometimes it comes after the first cry and baby turns pink, or after the last push and the placenta’s exit, or maybe even after the OMG moment that this baby is beautiful and ours. Sometimes it settles in after the relief that baby has latched onto mommy’s nipple and is nursing. It’s the realization that a miracle just happened. And with that moment, everything that mommy’s just been through yields to the joy of what’s just happened and what can happen next.

All of that had to have been part of Matthew’s, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way,” (Matthew 1:18) but no one recorded it. We have trouble remembering it.  And we need to remember – especially in these days – we need to remember how the birth of Jesus happened for Mary if we are going to live into our roles as “mothers of God.”

John’s never-read-at-Christmas account of Jesus’s birth makes our ‘mother of God’ role crystal clear (Rev. 12). And no wonder we don’t read it! An expectant mother is about to give birth while an incarnation of evil waits to catch and devour her baby the moment the child is delivered. For John, we (the Church) are that expectant mother, the agent through which Jesus arrives in our time and our place. And just like Mary’s experience, our delivery of the Christ in the world is fraught with fears, painful and exhausting, and includes blood, sweat, and tears. But we don’t really want to hear that version of the nativity on Christmas Eve. 

Neither do we want to hear the after-birth Gospel accounts about the Holy Family fleeing for their lives and seeking asylum in Egypt, or the ensuing slaughter of Bethlehem’s children under age two. Still, those stories are part of the Holy Family’s Christmas experience. Tragically, stories like those are the Christmas experience still of too many families in poverty, facing violence, being trafficked, at our country’s borders, separated, and in detention. 

I wonder exactly when Christmas became the story of Jesus coming into the world to deliver individuals from personal sin. That wasn’t Mary’s experience. Mary’s song about Christmas (Luke 1:46-55) was about bringing down the mighty and filling up the hungry. Delivering Jesus into the world was a painful, messy, labor-intensive task. But the outcome was, and is, new life in our midst! Mary’s lens on Christmas promised a time when everything would be made right again. As long as we are willing to be “mothers of God” and deliver Jesus into our world, Christmas still holds that promise. 

When Jesus does arrive through our acts of charity, advocacy, generosity, solidarity, or justice restored, we can experience, like I imagine Mary experiencing, the truth of John’s words: When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. (John 16:21) May these Twelve Days of Christmas revive and renew you, strengthen and encourage you, empower and embolden you as mothers of God in our time. May joy be yours every time you bring Jesus into the world, joy so profound that everything you just went through in the process melts into God’s forgiving forgetfulness.  And be assured of this: everything in that moment is right with the world. 

This Unholy Christmas

by Abigail Conley

This Christmas seems to be a Christmas of lasts. An aunt is dying and this will be her last Christmas by any reasonable account. My mom was diagnosed with dementia earlier this year, and while medication is staving off some symptoms, that won’t last forever. “Rapidly progressing” was added to the diagnosis. In less than six months, she went from working full-time to not making sense in phone conversations. Hindsight says there may have been earlier signs, but no matter what, I imagine she will be much less of the mom I cherish by this time next year. I’m walking with lay leaders snagging moments with loved ones, knowing this is the last Christmas together. 

All of that is terrible, and brings some wonderful with it, and is exactly what we expect from life. Some years and seasons are better than others. But as I read the story of the Magi’s visit with a bible study a couple weeks ago, I was reminded of the strange and profound re-writing of history that Christians did. Matthew, the only Gospel writer to tell of the Magi’s visit, does all sorts of acrobatics to tie this experience of Jesus to the Old Testament. He cites verse after verse, assuring us, “This is what those people were talking about.”

If you go back and read the original texts, what Matthew says is about Jesus is never about Jesus. Read Isaiah all the way through at face value if you don’t believe me. Yet, here he is, re-writing, re-telling, certain of God’s faithfulness in the quoted texts and in the experience of Jesus. Facts are being rewritten in favor of Truth. 

One of my rabbi friends was appalled the day I told him that many Christians’ understanding of redemption is that a ransom was paid by Christ or a purchase made. Redeemed ends up wrapped up in the cross. With all the horror still on his face, he said, “You mean it’s not that God can take something terrible and make something good out of it? Like the holocaust?” I liked his definition better for sure, but I readily admitted that was a definition that would have to be supplied and agreed upon. It was not the assumed definition. 

I say that because Christians do not have a corner on God’s ongoing work in the world. Sometimes we think we do for sure, but we are not alone among the people who believe God still intervenes in this place. Nor are we alone in our understanding that we participate in God’s work. 

We are a bit alone in the Trinity, though. Even those of us who reject the notion of the Trinity are still wrestling with it. I can go most ways on the Trinity, but I do like that one of the claims of the Trinity is that the prophetic Spirit that was with Isaiah made its home with the church. We are always Spirit-led, Spirit-breathed people. I wonder about what it means so many years later for our Jewish family, but I am still amazed by the permission given by the Spirit for Matthew to rewrite history. 

And I said all the Spirit stuff to come back to this: lasts are still holy. We have permission to figure out the new thing. We do not sit back waiting for God to do God’s thing. We make choices, and we do so with prayer and discernment trust the Spirit remains with us through that. Some of God’s best work even seems to come in impossible interruptions that are made holy. 

So as we sit in these days with the prophets roused by the Spirits, and the Magi called by a star, and the Shepherds beckoned by angels, and a holy family that definitely wasn’t feeling so holy to start with, keep deep hope even through the lasts. For God still calls and leads, even you.

The In-Between

by Abigail Conley

On Christmas Day, I’ll lug bags through the airport. They’ll be filled with gifts that I wanted to see so I didn’t have them shipped straight to my parents’ house. Those gifts will be padded with the few winter clothes we own, all of which get pulled out for the week of thirty or forty degrees colder than Phoenix. Some version of this has been part of the ritual of Christmas since I became a pastor. A day of flying ends with a few more hours of driving in a rental car. Many times, I have longed to be traveling to a place where I could at least top off the endless day with a glass of wine. Alas, the Southeast continues to hang on to dry counties with the same death grip it uses for the Confederacy.

The plane ride is eerily silent and empty if it’s early and chaotic if it leaves after 8 a.m. The seats are packed with children who are excited about more things than I care to count, are ramped up on sugar or ramped up in hope of sugar, likely tired, and definitely bored. The best of parents are worn thin by the time anyone is seated on the plane. The same pattern is true for security, where parents herd kids through the line. It’s immediately evident if the family flies often or only at Christmas. The kids’ excitement manages to derail that process, too.

Pick a place along the journey and business as usual has gone out the window. The lone open gas station is packed, as is the Waffle House. Roads are mostly deserted, no matter where I’m driving. Across the board, people are either exuding Christmas cheer or in a Scrooge-level huff, with few occupying middle ground. For me, at least, this holy day is mostly an in-between day. It is most definitely the already and the not yet. I have sung carols, heard the Gospel, and marveled at the promise of the Christ child. Family gatherings are still a ways off, including packages and too much food. This day lies in between.

The in-between places are never the ones of memories carried through the years. They are never talked about at family gatherings. We don’t mark in-between places as holy. I am incredibly aware that not hitting cultural milestones makes some places feel more in-between than they should. I spent three years as a very single adult after seven years of higher education and another three as a kind of single adult before getting married. Many people treated all of those years as an in-between, not my life.

As Christmas draws near, I’m aware of how much weight the in-between places carry. Holiday expectations and in-between places never seem to match up just right. The in-between is a place of grief, a place of longing, and a place of wandering.

That day of travel every year that is spent mostly nowhere has given me some perspective on the rest of the year, especially the in-between times. If I cannot live my faith in the far more prevalent in-between times, then I’ve lost some of my best opportunities. Here are a few things I do that day a little more intentionally than the other days:

  • Hold babies. I’ve said it many times, but here’s once more: I hold babies in the line for security. At least I make the offer. Most parents look surprised, look around briefly at the number of security guards, then hand over the baby. I know they’ve done the math and realize I’m not going to make it anywhere with their baby. Maybe holding babies freaks you out. How do you make the day of the people around you a little easier? How can you tangibly love your neighbor in that moment?
  • Tip well. I loathe that we create industries where we intentionally underpay employees. I always tip 20% out of the conviction that if I can’t afford that, I can’t afford to eat out. We don’t buy drinks at restaurants most of the time, so it evens out pretty well. Maybe your budget is tight and you’re only eating out because there’s no other option. Even so, how can you be generous?
  • Be patient. So here’s one way to be exceedingly generous. I am not a patient person. Ask my partner about this and he could well talk for twenty minutes about my lack of patience before you got another word in. Still, we’ve opted for a society that pushes productivity amid stagnant wages. Most everyone is a little tired and overworked. An old Sunday school song might help, “Remember that God is patient, too, and think of all the times that others have to wait on you.”
  • Say, “Thank you.” The stories of people in service industries are appalling when it comes to the way they are treated. Recognize the dignity of people around you (imago dei, anyone?) and treat them with basic respect.
  • Accept help. The implication of “Love your neighbor,” is that we’re all in this together. There’s more than that, sure, but if you get nothing else, remember that we’re all in this together. You might need help one day and it’s ok to take it. You gave someone else the chance to be nice or to live out their faith. One terrible morning on my way to work, I stopped to get caffeine at a gas station. I opened my wallet to pay and it was totally empty. I realized in my non-caffeinated stupor that when I dropped my wallet from my nightstand the night before, the cards must have fallen out. Someone behind me paid the $3 and I went back home and found my cards. I love that person dearly, even though I wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them, again.

The in-between is holy, too. For it was in the in-between place that the Christ child was born because we needed something in-between heaven and earth. Let us occupy the in-between with as holy intent as we welcome the Christ child.  

Reflections from Christmas Eve in Iraq – 2016

by Owen Chandler

The chapel is quiet right now. The only noise comes from the Black Hawks and Chinooks preparing to take off to destinations around Iraq. It is Christmas Eve. The rain is pouring and the ground is rapidly covered in a type of mud that is anything but festive. It bogs the mood of the camp, but the war effort does not slow. I have been here for every holiday this year. It never slows, not even in Taji, a place far from the thunder of the front lines.

In just a few short hours, the Australian Padre, fellow US chaplains and I will lead a candlelight service celebrating once again the birth of the Prince of Peace. We will sing traditional carols as military personnel and contractors from around the world pause to pay homage. It is a wonderful reminder. Men and women have looked to this event with hope-filled wonder for many years.

I think a great deal about peace these days. Whether it is Iraq or Syria, it is difficult for those who care not to watch with broken hearts. I feel fortunate to be part of an ongoing operation trying to do something about the tragedy we all see on our screens, but it never seems to be enough and it never seems to move fast enough. The destruction is indiscriminate and especially brutal to those most vulnerable: the elderly, women, and children.

As I unpack the candles for the service, I meditate on the last year. I’m getting ready to leave. The battles still rage to my north and probably will for some time to come. There is a certain guilt I cannot help but feel as I prepare to leave. I get to go home. I get to hug my wife and children and sleep in relative safety under the beautiful Tucson night sky. If I want, I do not have to even consider the war-torn events I am poised to leave. It is a strange luxury lost on most of our country. I am ill at ease with that reality. And so I wonder and pray, what will PEACE look like for this part of the world?

One of the officers at lunch recounted the story of the Christmas Truce from WWI. I googled it when I returned back to my office. The story perfectly illustrates how, during the weeks leading to Christmas, tragedy becomes the paradox of God’s grace. The story has the feel of myth. As it goes, roughly 100,000 British and German soldiers were involved in an unofficial cessation of hostility along the Western Front. The Germans placed candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees. Both sides joined in singing Christmas Carols, shouting greetings across the way. They even made excursions across No Man’s Land to exchange gifts of food, tobacco, and alcohol.

How were they able to peer past their training and their reality to see the peace being celebrated in the birth of Christ? I think of the enemies we now face and I cannot imagine a similar scene. I cannot see the same opportunities of make-shift sacred space or a common understanding of humanity. During the Christmas Truce, there was a stalemate in the trenches. There was a space created in the impasse. The space was steeped in desperation and prayer. It became a sacred moment juxtaposed with the coming Christmas morning. There was time to actually consider the story of the one hunkered in the opposite the trench. The soldier was drilled to believe that the enemy soldier is the enemy of all life and all future. But in the space in between, they saw a common humanity. They saw the image of God within the other. In a season where we celebrate hope, joy and love, peace overcame them, even if for only a short while.

In some respects, it is probably not completely fair to compare this current conflict with that one so long ago. As I hear the approaching steps of a chaplain, one cannot help but wonder, however. Have the last 13 years of war has created a similar type of stalemate? This deployment has created more questions than answers. Will we be able to take the tragic spaces created by war and make them holy? How will peace be possible if we are unable or even unwilling to see our own stories, sons, and daughters in the faces of our enemy? I do not know. In our candlelit circle tonight, there will be no elements of the enemy. There will be no echoing songs coming from battle lines afar. No gifts. No sharing of photos of family. No laughter. After nine months however, I can attest that the same desperation and prayer will be here tonight.

The problem of peace is nothing new. I had hoped that this problem would be one I would not have to pass down to my children awaiting my return. I imagine that same hope was a driving reason for the anticipation surrounding Christ’s birth so long ago. And so tonight we will sing. And we will pray. And we will lift the light of Christ high into the air. And we will welcome the Prince of Peace, trusting like those soldiers did a hundred years ago that peace can be born in the most hopeless places.

Peace,
Owen

Hope in a Child

by Abigail Conley

“I think you have a kid in there,” I said, nodding toward his truck, and taking his empty cart back to the return for him.

“Thank you so much,” he answered, looking relieved.

Both of us were crazy enough to go to Costco in the week before Christmas and just happened to park near each other. I confess, I second guessed taking his cart for him. Mostly, I second guessed because women doing things like that for men in public space isn’t expected. I almost did it as soon as I headed toward the return with my own cart, but walked past him just a little bit. I looked back to talk to him, to offer to take his cart for him. In that split second, I might have seen his hesitation to walk away from the truck where his child was safely strapped in a car seat. I don’t know. I do remember what was expressed more deeply than usual, “Thank you so much.”

I’m quite certain he didn’t know that I’d seen him earlier, along with his son, inside the store. I was sitting at the restaurant, quickly scarfing down a slice of pizza before heading on to my next task. He walked by, between my cart and the wall, pushing his cart with both purchases and son. I noticed him because his son was crying. When I say crying, I mean that horrible version of crying that children do when they’re just done.

I’d taken notice because of the crying, and then I saw a father being a very good father. They had a smoothie, and the child wanted some. As he cried, the father gently coaxed, “Use your words.” Over and over, again, “Use your words.” The phrase is familiar, one often heard spoken by teachers and parents of young children. Those words struck me differently today, though, as the man spoke them to his son.

I thought about them after he left Costco, as I was finishing up my pizza and walking to my car. It’s the week before Christmas; the walk to the car in a Costco parking lot is extra long. I let the please, “Use your words,” roll over in my mind, thinking how different the world would be if we used our words, instead.

My mourning for Syria has been long and deep. A “complete meltdown of humanity” the news says. That might be the best summary imaginable if even half of the news making it to this part of the world is true. I fear we actually don’t know the half of it. My fear as leaders talk of the need for more nuclear weapons is deep, as well. Words, it seems, are always used to cry out for something more, too often, that thing is violence. It seems that’s the go-to answer right now, with no one quite sure how to put a stop to it all.

I don’t know any more about that father than what I just told you. Who knows what he’s like day in, day out. I have hope, though, that this father coaxing his very, very young son to use his words rather than have a tantrum might do even more good with that child in the long run. Use your words, not your fists. Use your words, not a weapon. Use your words, face to face. Use your words first, and finally.

It is the absurdity of the season, after all, that our deepest hope is in a child—a child called the Word, made flesh, and dwelling among us. The child, called Word, brought all sorts of hope along into that manger, including that swords would be beaten into plowshares, and we would not learn war any more. The beauty of that impossibility lingers deep these days, the promise that we will one day put away our many, many tools of destruction.

For today, while I still await the Christ child’s coming, I am comforted a bit by this man and his child. The hopes of this season run deep: the hope for peace; the hope for fear to subside; the hope that our words become enough. To this man who I’ll likely never see, again, thank you so much.

Helpful or Not?

by Karen Richter

I’ve been mulling over the words sacred and secular lately. Just yesterday a member of my congregation described themselves as “a pretty secular person.” I’m sure I blinked, eyes wide because I have zero poker face skills. How could this person – no matter what theology or philosophy – who I have experienced as chock-full of passion and integrity, be secular? And now that I think about it, how could a person whose faith compels them to act in ways contrary to justice, compassion, and peace be sacred?

What do these words even mean? Is the distinction helpful any longer, if it ever was?

In high school choir, we sang sacred music.  Just a side note, because surely you were wondering, my favorite piece was John Rutter’s For the Beauty of the Earth.

We also sang secular music. Here’s one I remember that you probably recall as well.

Why is a song about connection and longing and common humanity labeled secular just because God isn’t mentioned? And surely, if we thought about it, we could think of religious songs that are so soaked in nationalism, exclusivism, and fear that the word God sours in our mouths as we sing.

I’m always suspicious about either/or choices, and the sacred or secular choice is no different. Questions worth asking always have more than two potential answers!

In this holiday season, we so often get pulled into irrelevant discussions about what is appropriate as part of our Christmas celebration and what isn’t. Mistletoe and holly, yule logs, decorated trees, candles… these treasured traditions all originated in pagan winter celebrations. Contemporary questions abound as well… Santa during church events? Starbucks cups? Church on Christmas day?  How do we choose what to affirm and what to discard? What goes and what stays?

It all stays. It all belongs. If incarnation means anything at all, it means that the false dichotomy of sacred and secular is revealed as illusion, forever broken down, shattered completely, and re-formed as part of a blessed whole.

You belong too! Merry Christmas and peace in 2017!