Wrapping and Unwrapping the 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 God loves us so much that God came among us and became human. It was and is a gift. The gift of the incarnation also extends to us, as it did to Mary. On this eleventh day of Christmas, I remember that a part of God is also born in us and every other person we meet.

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

 My granddaughter, Zoe, and I have a tradition of spending time together wrapping presents beginning in October. So, wrapping gifts that will soon 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 we unwrap that gift of the Christ Child in ourselves. As spiritual friends, we have the privilege of watching and waiting for the excitement of Christmas morning with each other. When some realize Christ is in them, they excitedly unwrap the present, almost tearing the paper apart. Others unwrap the gift slowly and cautiously.

We, as observers, also receive a gift, for the gift of the Christ Child is too powerful to keep and must be shared. Our spiritual friends help us unwrap the gift within ourselves as they share the gift in them. Each experience is unique, but the gift is continually offered to all of us by the One whose name is Love.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Gift of the Christmas Season, Tenth Day of Christmas

Brueggemann: Gift of the Christmas Season, Tenth Day of Christmas

“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.

Precious Christmas visits

We have connected much of our life to schools and colleges. The twelve days of the church’s Christmas season, especially between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, is traditionally a slow-down time for higher education when people are on vacation or less busy. It is incredible how my body and 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, 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 broader worldview. 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 bluejays 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, faster, softer, and then louder like jazz improvisation.

I switch gears and turn inside. I open my memory book to recent and past Christmas, re-enter those scenes, and bring them alive. Remembering. Decorating the tree with grandchildren. I am traveling to the beach. Shopping with children and grandchildren. Going to the movies. Ice skating. Family dinners. Watching slides. Leftovers. I read new or old books in a “to read” stack by my desk. Writing. Visits to and from family we 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.

I pray today that I will open this gift and treasure this Christmas season’s precious present.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

The Dance of Contemplation and Action

Rohr: Dance of Contemplation and Action

“The dance of action and contemplation is an art form that will take your entire life to master. Like Moses at the burning bush, many of us begin with a mystical moment and end with social action or what looks like politics.”—Richard Rohr Daily Meditations, July 5, 2017. Adapted from Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer (Paulist Press: 2014), 6, 11.

Life indeed is a dance where we first sit out the dance as we contemplate the love of God as a mystic. Later, we bravely go on the dance floor as activists for those harmed by fear. An ideal is to do both, but balance often is never our strong suit. When I returned to the life of a “religious” after a five-year interlude from God, I had an insatiable hunger to read and study about God. I think this came from my medical training. If we want to know about a subject, we research and study in-depth what has already been written about it. Then, I wrote about what I was experiencing for some unknown reason. Again, this may have come from my immersion in academic medicine, which spilled into my spiritual life with the call to “publish or perish.”

 One December night, I remember reading an Advent piece at an early Christmas gathering of the women of St. Mark’s. Mrs. Metcalf, a renowned speech teacher who also sat on our pew at the church, said to me in passing as we picked up our plates for dinner, “It is good to see another mystic.” Mystic, I never considered myself a mystic, but suddenly, I knew a master had just anointed me. Again, I believe many gifts of seeing God’s presence at work in the world came from my medical specialty. My job as a radiologist was to look for the unknown in the shadows, often in the dark, by imaging techniques, X-rays, CT, MRI, or ultrasound, examining a hidden inside world.

 God uses every part of our experience. No experience is wasted. Eventually, over many, many years of just writing about this experience, I have been moved to action, making phone calls, writing letters, marching, visiting the sick and dying, working with those who have difficulty getting groceries, advocating for prisoners and immigrants, supporting homeless veterans, working with people in recovery. As long as we can see the love of God in our contemplation and in our actions, my experience is that we will know peace, one of the fruit of the spirit. I know I am off track when that peace or “piece” is missing.

I share this dance on the ninth day of the Christmas season, and look forward to learning from other “mystics” who also seek to know more about what will be next on our dance cards.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/