Brueggemann: Gift of the Christmas Season

Brueggemann: Gift of the Christmas Season

“Christmas is especially for those of us whose lives are scarred and hurt in debilitating ways. Of course, that means all of us. Christmas is about a word from God addressed to the world in its exhaustion. ..Behold I am doing a new thing. Christmas is a day to stop and notice the newness that God is giving that lets our life start over in a fresh place.” Walter Brueggemann, Devotion for Advent, Celebrating Abundance.  pp. 68-69

So much of our life has been connected to schools and colleges. The twelve days of the church’s Christmas Season and especially the time between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day is traditionally a slow down time for higher education where people are on vacation or are less busy. It is amazing how my body and my mind have been conditioned over the years to live at a different pace during this Christmas Season. It is a Christmas gift.

The days are shorter.  I can sleep until seven am and go to my window and still watch the world yawn and wake up around me. This morning is rainy and wet with a dense fog. There are fewer leaves. Even with the thick mist, I can see at a greater distance with a wider world view. I watch the deer gallop away together by my window back to the woods as they hear the sound of cars. The busy territorial squirrels chase each other up and down trees. The cardinals and blue jays come to the feeder by my window and share space with smaller birds whose markings I cannot read. I have time to listen to the rhythm of the rain. It is as hypnotic as ocean waves, but the ocean is like a Souza march keeping perfect time while the rain changes and is slower and then faster and then softer and then louder like the improvisation of jazz.

I switch gears and turning inside, I open my memory book to Christmases in the past, re-enter those scenes and bring them alive. Traveling to the beach. Shopping with children and grandchildren. Going to movies. Ice skating. Family dinners. Watching slides. Leftovers. Reading new books or old ones I have in a to read list stack by my desk. Writing. Visits to and from family we have missed seeing during the year. Spending time with old and new friends I have neglected because of my busyness. Resting.

The church year gives us a few more days for this short Christmas season and extends it to Epiphany, the celebration of the arrival of the Wise Men on January 6. My prayer today is that I will open this gift and treasure the precious present of this Christmas Season.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Buechner: Gift of Christmas

Buechner: Gift of Christmas

“O Lord, the gift of new life, new light, can be a gift truly only if we open ourselves to receive it. So this is our prayer, Lord: that thou wilt open our eyes to see thy glory in the coming again of light each day, open our ears to hear the angels’ hymn in the stirring within us of joy at the coming of the child, open our hearts to the transforming power of thy love as it comes to us through the love of all those who hold us most dear and have sacrificed most for us.

Be born among us that we may ourselves be born. Be born within us that by words and deeds of love we may bear the tidings of thy birth to the world that dies for lack of love. Amen” Frederick Buechner, “Come and See,” Secrets in the Dark A Life in Sermons, p. 55.

 The gift of Christmas is the incarnation, a big word that means that God loves us so much that God came among us and became human. It was and is a gift. The gift of the incarnation still extends to us as it did to Mary. There is a part of God born in us and in every other person we will meet.

Advent is a time for us to prepare to honor the Creator by learning how to keep unwrapping that gift.

 My granddaughter and I have a tradition of spending time together wrapping presents beginning in October. Wrapping gifts that soon will be unwrapped becomes a significant part of my year during this time.

 As I meet with people in spiritual direction I cannot help but imagine how they are unwrapping that gift of the Christ child in themselves. We as spiritual friends have the privilege of watching and waiting for the excitement of Christmas morning with them.  When some realize that Christ is in them, they excitedly unwrap the present almost tearing the paper apart. Others unwrap the gift slowly and cautiously. It is mutual, for they also help us unwrap the gift they have given us. The experiences are different, but the gift is continually offered to all of us by the One whose name is Love.

Joanna joannaseibert.com.

God With Us

God With Us

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” John 1:14

hard cover edition

I have used so many meaningful books to prepare for Christmas during the Advent season each year. I keep returning to God With Us, Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas first published in 2007 by Paraclete Press and edited by Greg Pennoyer and Gregory Wolfe. There are scripture readings, essays by six well-known religious authors, and prayers, but what I most connect to are the paintings with each reading. Some days I only find time to look at the illustrations and say the prayer, but they both seem to stay with me. Eugene Peterson explains it in the introduction. “Over and over again they (artists) rescue us from a life in which the wonder has leaked out.”  

Other days I read everything including special essays about the meaning of the feast day of that week. I especially enjoy the readings during the twelve days of Christmas when the pace has slowed down and there is more time to digest what this smorgasbord feast of word and art presents to us. The book is now in paperback, but if you can find the hardback, treasure it. 

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

paperback edition