Progessive Christianity: Spiritual Networking and Resources for Evolving Faith "The Gift of Presence" for Tuesday, 23 December 2014
The miracle of life is the true Christmas miracle... indeed each breath is a miracle, each moment when we are able to gaze at the stars and see their brilliance is a miracle. And love...that's the best miracle of all. This Christmas we wish you moments of love, laughter and light.
Finding the Light Within
Give the gift of Presence...
During this time of year, most of us are rushing around being busy getting presents and making plans. But what about the real presence? True presence is the real gift you can give to your family and friends. Can you look into their eyes and express your gratitude for them? Can you see your family and friends at their deeper spiritual level and acknowledge their inner divinity?
Presence comes from our heart, not from the outer world. We spend all this time and money trying to say, with the outer world, what we really want to say with the inner world which is I love you and I am so glad you are in my life.
So, this year, when you gather, can you be grounded, real, and PRESENT? I assure you, this is the gift that will be most appreciated, most remembered, and the most contagious. As one lights their candle from another's candle, the first light does not go out. As we offer the present of presence, others reflect that light back and pass it on.
And on and on it goes...
~Deshna
Light in the Midst of Darkness
Fred Plumer
Jesus entered the world in a dark time in human history, particularly for his own people, the Jews. I will not go into the gory details here but few of us can even begin to grasp how hopeless and dark the world must have seemed to those oppressed people. They were living under extraordinary conditions. Most of them had lost the titles to their family farms. Through brutal and unfair taxation they had become tenant farmers on the same land their families may have owned for centuries. They had to endure unfair and abusive behavior from the Roman Empire and its soldiers who enforced the restrictive laws of both the Romans and the Temple priests. They had to fear death constantly through execution or starvation. This must have seemed particularly unimaginable for people who believed their G-d was watching out for them.
I have always been an early riser. According to my parents I was this way as a very young child. My mother used to jokingly complain, “It was like you could not wait to start the day.” Even as a teen I would often slip out of bed to watch the sun slowly climbing over the trees that bordered our Northeastern fence line. I suppose I am like my dad in this way. He was an early riser as well. I have some fond memories of just the two of us sitting in the kitchen together quietly talking and sharing a cup of hot chocolate before anyone else in the house was awake.
I presume this characteristic could simply be imprinted in my DNA. It may also be a result of those lovely experiences I had as a child. But early mornings are still important to me. Frankly, I still wake up wondering what wonderful or exciting things are going to happen that day. It is also the time when I do most of my creative thinking and writing. I still have special places where I go to quietly wait for a new day.
When I am struggling, maybe with grief, or trying to sort out something difficult in my life, I often go to a special spot and quietly wait for the new sun to appear. It always makes a significant difference in my being when I do this. My load feels lighter. My fears often dissolve. My grief can be transformed into hope. Over the years I have thought of all kinds of metaphors that may explain this phenomenon. I am reminded that it is a new dawn, or a new day. No matter how painful or dark my situation seems to be, as that sun comes over the horizon everything in my life begins to look and feel different. The new sun symbolizes a new beginning for me. I feel I have gained a new perspective. My internal darkness has dissolved into new light and I am comforted.
It is sad if not tragic that so many people in our crowded world now live in developed areas where they rarely experience real darkness. The constant glare from street lights, house lights, car lights, billboards, cell phones and computers keeps us hidden from the darkness. And therefore the slow but definitive transition from darkness into light is lost to so many and experienced by so few. Without that, it is difficult to appreciate the new light. This transition is one of the fundamental rhythms of nature. Whether we recognize it or not, we are part of nature.
The late John O’Donohue, wrote in his wonderful book, Anam Cara: “It is one of the tragedies of modern culture that we have lost touch with these primal thresholds of nature. The urbanization of modern life has succeeded in exiling us from this fecund kinship with our mother earth. Fashioned from the earth, we are souls in clay form. We need to remain in rhythm with our inner clay voice and longing. Yet this voice is no longer audible in the modern world. We are not even aware of our loss, consequently, the pain of our spiritual exile is more intense in being largely unintelligible…Just as darkness brings rest and release, so the dawn brings awakening and renewal. In our mediocrity and distraction, we forget that we are privileged to live in a wondrous universe. Each day the dawn unveils the mystery of this universe. Dawn is the ultimate surprise; it awakens us to the immense ‘thereness’ of nature. The wonderful subtle color of the universe arises to clothe everything…Colors bring out the depth of secret presence at the heart of nature.”(pg. 2)
Our early ancestors took these transitions seriously. For one thing they were part of an agricultural society. Their lives were dependent on knowledge of the seasons and the life of the sun. That is why so many of the ancient religious expressions were based around the worship of the sun. When the sun sank into the horizon they could never be certain where it was going or if it was going to come back. This got particularly scary during the winter when provisions were dwindling and the daylight hours become shorter each day. This is why most cultures included the worship of the sun or Sun God. There was almost always a special celebration of the day or the week when it was clear the days were becoming longer again. In the Roman Empire when Christianity was becoming an institution, those celebrations came to be called the winter Solstice or Sol Invictus.
After living in the Pacific Northwest for nearly a decade, I must admit the Winter Solstice has taken on a much larger importance in my life. During the winter, wherever you are—unless, of course, you live on the equator—the time of daylight gets shorter. On the latitude where we now live, the changes are far more dramatic than other areas where I have lived. Over a period of six months, from late June to late December, we slowly lose approximately eight hours of sunlight during the day. Sunrises are much later and sunsets much earlier. We spend a lot more time in darkness during the winter months. Many of us wait, sometimes impatiently, for the morning light. You will meet very few people in this area who cannot tell you the exact date of the Winter Solstice. Many of us attend Solstice celebrations. Occasionally we actually get what it must have been like for people who were trying to survive off the land 2000 years ago.
The decision to celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25th was made in the early fourth century when Constantine was the Roman Emperor. Constantine was grounded in the cult of Sol Invictus. The date was selected for Jesus’s birth in order to correspond with the Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. Make no mistake, it was both a political as well as a cultural decision that worked for the Roman Empire and for the new empire church. I find it both interesting and even ironic that the Yeshua movement was started, in part at least, as an anti-empire movement. Yet 300 years later it was absorbed and became a tool of the very thing the movement opposed and had cost Jesus his life. This would be a lot like Monsanto absorbing the Whole Foods Corporation which specializes in selling organic foods.
For decades, I have felt compelled to explain that December 25 was really not the date Jesus was born. I suspect I have ruined Christmas mornings for more than one parishioner. But I thought this was important to explain because it provided an example of how so many things in the Jesus story were changed to fit the bias of the authors. It also bothered me because it represented another example of how the powerful took over the leadership and interpretation of the Jesus story.
However, over the last few years, I have begun to think that celebrating Jesus’ birthday on the same holiday of Sol Invictus or the Winter Solstice was actually a good idea and in some ways appropriate. I rarely quote from the Book of John because we know there is little authentic Yeshua history in this late Gospel. In fairness, the writer or writers of the book of John did have the perspective of how Yeshua teachings may have had a positive, even enlightening impact on his first century followers. Maybe that is why as I write this, I continue to hear John’s voice whispering in my ear.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)
Jesus entered the world in a dark time in human history, particularly for his own people, the Jews. I will not go into the gory details here but few of us can even begin to grasp how hopeless and dark the world must have seemed to those oppressed people. They were living under extraordinary conditions. Most of them had lost the titles to their family farms. Through brutal and unfair taxation they had become tenant farmers on the same land their families may have owned for centuries. They had to endure unfair and abusive behavior from the Roman Empire and its soldiers who enforced the restrictive laws of both the Romans and the Temple priests. They had to fear death constantly through execution or starvation. This must have seemed particularly unimaginable for people who believed their G-d was watching out for them.
It was into this great darkness that Yeshua entered the world. In spite of his humble beginning, somewhere along the way he managed to bring a new light, a new perspective to many of his followers. For some it became a dawning or an awakening unlike any other. In spite of how we have adjusted or retold the Jesus story over the centuries, this man’s life continues to inspire, to guide, to cajole millions more people into an awakening. For many it is an awakening from sleep. For others it is awakening from the darkness of the emotional winter, the overwhelming sense of loss or the pain of recognizing an unfulfilling or wasted life. For 2000 years, his teachings have guided people to new awareness, a new dawning, and his teachings continue to be a light for those who are willing to live his compassionate ways. I must admit it now seems perfectly appropriate to me to celebrate this unique man’s life and legacy during the time of year promising a new dawn and offering a new beginning.
I wish for each and every one of you an enlightened Christmas and a joy-filled New Year. And may I also wish you a very bright, merry Solstice. Let there be light.
photo by Fred Plumer, Fox Island Sunrise
The Greatest Birth Story Ever Told?
Rev. Dawn Hutchings
Some have said that it was the most amazing birth story ever told. This birth narrative heralded the arrival of a child who was praised as the Son of God, the Saviour of the World who was said to be the personification of peace on earth; God incarnate; fully divine and fully human. Not everyone agrees that this is the most amazing birth story ever told. Among the ancients, some insisted that the story Alexander the Great’s birth was the greatest story every told.
Alexander the Great’s birth story is truly one of the greats. His was, after all the, son of a Queen and a god and a king. His mother, Olympias was a Queen, betrothed to Philip of Macedonia. The night before they were married, Queen Olympias dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all around her, and then as if by magic they were extinguished.
As always, I am indebted to the scholarship of John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg whose book The First Christmas is the gift that keeps on giving!
For those looking for a different approach to Advent 4B check out the sermon posted here.
Some have said that it was the most amazing birth story ever told. This birth narrative heralded the arrival of a child who was praised as the Son of God, the Saviour of the World who was said to be the personification of peace on earth; God incarnate; fully divine and fully human. Not everyone agrees that this is the most amazing birth story ever told. Among the ancients, some insisted that the story Alexander the Great’s birth was the greatest story every told.
Alexander the Great’s birth story is truly one of the greats. His was, after all the, son of a Queen and a god and a king. His mother, Olympias was a Queen, betrothed to Philip of Macedonia. The night before they were married, Queen Olympias dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all around her, and then as if by magic they were extinguished. Philip dreamed that he sealed up his Queen’s lady parts with a seal which bore the impression of a lion. The high priests who interpreted the dream warned Philip not to even entertain the idea of consummating the marriage because one wouldn’t go to the trouble of sealing up something that was empty. So Queen Olympias must already be with child, who would undoubtedly be a boy with the courage of a lion. If that wasn’t enough to put Philip off he found a serpent lying beside Queen Olympias as se slept, which was said to have abated his passion. Later the oracle of Apollo at Delphi went on to explain that this was no ordinary serpent, no this was the incarnation of the God Zeus.
The day that Alexander the Great was born, one of the seven wonders of the world burnt to the ground. The temple of the goddess Artemis in Ephesus was the home of the Goddess Artemis who was said to have been attending to the birth of Alexander at the time. Alexander the Great was heralded as the Son of God and Saviour of the World and as one of the greatest warriors the world has ever known, he went on to conquer a good portion of the planet. But by the time our hero was born, the glory days of the Greeks had long since passed. The Empire of Rome had replaced the Greeks as rulers of the world and they had the conquered lands to prove it. By the time our hero was born, Julius Caesar had established an Empire the likes of which the world had never seen before. Gaius Julius’ prowess on the battlefield was matched only by his cunning in the senate and together had one him the title of Caesar. But as great and marvellous a leader as Julius Caesar may have been, history tells us that he and his wife were not blessed with children. Alas, Caesar did have a son by virtue of his dalliance with Cleopatra but that’s another story all together; suffice it to say, that that little fellow didn’t stand a chance against the one Julius would appoint as his heir. Born to Julius Caesar’s niece, little Octavian was eventually adopted as his great-uncle’s heir apparent who eventually amassed powers that far outshone his illustrious uncle’s.
Indeed it is Octavian of whom it was said by the ancients was born under the most amazing circumstances. Indeed, some have said that it was the most amazing birth story ever told. This birth narrative heralded the arrival of a child who was praised as the Son of God, the Saviour of the World who was said to be the personification of peace on earth; God incarnate; fully divine and fully human. Octavian went down in history by his nick-name, or should I say by his imperial name, for as the first Emperor of Rome, Octavian became know as Augustus Caesar and it is his birth narrative that was the greatest birth story ever told.Not since Alexander the Great had any birth story even come close to Augustus Caesar. Augustus is Latin, for one who should be praised or worshiped. Caesar means Emperor and the legends surrounding this praiseworthy emperor are truly astounding.
Born just 60 odd years before the birth of Jesus, it is said that Augustus was a son of god twice over. For not only was he the adopted son of Julius Caesar who was by virtue of being the ruler of Rome had been deified upon his death; legend has it that his mother had a dalliance with some god or other. It seems that on the on the day he was born his mother had a dream that she was raised up to the sky and her intestines were spread all over the earth. His father also had a dream that the sun rose and set on his dear wife’s womb. Well when the priests were consulted it was decreed that little Octavian must be the progeny of a god. But which god you may ask, well ancient sources a blurry on the subject, some say it was Jupiter himself, others suggest the god Mars. But the poet Virgil gives us a pretty clear indication of just who Augustus was in the eyes of his people. For it seems that on the very night that Augustus Caesar was made Emperor strange star appeared in the sky. When Romans described the appearance of the star in the sky they said, “We saw the son of God, (Julius Caesar) ascending to the right hand of God the father Zeus.” The people believed that this was a sign that Julius Caesar’s spirit was finally able to leave Rome and head off into the heavens, blessing the reign of his great-nephew as he went by displaying a magnificent star in the sky.
Writing of Augustus’ actual birth, Virgil’s poem insists that, Augustus would be a divine king, the one the world had been waiting for, the one who would bring salvation to all the earth, freeing the people from fear and establishing a universal empire of peace. And if the truth be told, Augustus Caesar did live up to his birth legend. After all as Emperor he did establish the Pax Romana and peace was upheld in his empire. He did it by conquering and terrorizing the conquered. It was known as peace through victory. For once you were conquered by the Romans, you had better behave peacefully or they’d publicly execute you so as to set an example to your country folk. It was just as Virgil said: “Caesar is the Son of God. Salvation is to be found in non other save Augustus. Augustus is reigning in the fullness of his glory, the entire empire resounds with the sound of the advent proclamation.” Such an august man/god as this requires a birth narrative that heralds the arrival of the Saviour of the world.
Imagine what it must have been like for the early followers of the man Jesus of Nazareth; a peasant, rabbi, radical, and disturber of the peace, executed as a political threat to the Pax Romana. Jesus of Nazareth went to his death insisting that peace through victory was no peace at all. Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed the radical notion that peace, true peace can only be established and maintained through justice.Peace, true peace, is the result of everyone having enough. Distributive justice which ensures that the poor and the powerless, the marginalized and the despised have all they need to live in peace.It was such a radically dangerous notion that the powers that be could not let it live.
So, the Romans did what the Romans always did when the Pax Romana came under threat, the nailed the radical peace disturbing rabbi to a tree and let him hang there until he was dead. The only problem with that plan was that the dream just wouldn’t die. The dream of this new kind of peace, this peace through justice that Jesus had called the Reign of God, simply would not die in the hearts and minds of this itinerate preachers’ followers, the dream of the Reign of God lived on.
Years later; decades later, in fact a whole generation later, when one of this Jesus fella’s followers sat down to write the account of Jesus life, he did his best to find a way to ensure that the dream would never die. And so to this day, the dream lives on thanks in part to the writing of an unknown scribe who wrote down what the people we saying and teaching about the dream, long after this Jesus of Nazareth was gone. We don’t know who wrote it, tradition has called him Luke, but no one really knows who it was. Any way this is what this Luke character said, about his own writings.
“Many others have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events which have been fulfilled among us, exactly as those happenings were passed on to us by the original eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word. I too have investigated everything carefully from the beginning and have decided to set it down in writing for you, noble Theophilus, so that you may see how reliable the instruction was that you received.”
Now, just as surely as no one knows who this Luke character was, no one knows who this character Theophilus was. But the writer may have provided us a clue…you see when he wrote this down, the Greek language was always written in capitals; all capitals with no spaces between the letters. So, later when interpreters translated his work, the looked at the Greek and applied upper and lower case letters where they saw fit and that is how the Greek words for “lover of god” became the name Theophilus. But think for a moment, how different the meaning sounds when I read it the way it was written: “I have decided to set it down in writing for you, noble lover of god, so that you may see how reliable the instruction was that you received. Some translations say, “so that you may know the truth and believe.”
Whoever the writer was we do know that he was clever, clever enough to know that any great person worthy of belief or praise must have a birth story the likes of which the world had never heard. So, if a birth story is what it takes for you to know the truth and to believe then let me give you a birth story that is worthy of the one who proclaimed a different kind of peace.
You may have your peace through victory, but the Prince of Peace of whom I speak, now there is a Saviour worthy of praise. Son of God, you bet, but were as your Alexanders and Octavians might have been born of noble birth, the kind of Saviour I’m talking about was of the people. Born as the apostle Paul declared, “born of a woman”. Not anyone special, her name was Miriam, Lord knows there are Miriams everywhere just like her. This Miriam was just a slip of a girl, now more than about 12 or 13 years old. We don’t know how see became pregnant; people talked about her and about Jesus as if there was something dubious about the way in which it happened. But then in the Pax Romana, young girls fell pregnant all the time. Miriam wasn’t from a noble family.But they were righteous enough to find a good man to take her on, even though he knew she was pregnant.
It was as if he’d seen it in a dream and so this man, this man let’s call him after that dreamer of old, let’s call him Joseph, it was like he had a dream or something of how things should be. Anyway, no matter what the powers that be through at them, they coped, even if it meant travelling down to Bethlehem the city of the great King David to be registered. So far from the halls of power, so far that it might have been an outbuilding on the edge of the city, amongst the poorest of the poor a child was born.
A star, you bet your life there was a star. Right up there in the sky above the place were he was born and the star was so big and so bright that the powerful came and bowed down before the baby who would become the hope of the poor.
Finally, good news for the poor and the oppressed, the marginalized and the despised, good news for unto you is born in the City of David a Saviour who will be the Prince of Peace, who will bring peace on earth and good will to all.
Yeah, here’s a birth story like no other. Here’s a birth story about humble origins, about margins, about poverty, about struggle and oppression, about simple people living their lives as best they can and accomplishing great things.Forget your grand and glorious birth stories. You won’t find the divinity you seek in the halls of power.
The divinity you seek, is out there in the muck and mire of the world; in the stuff of life. The peace you hunger for won’t come from the rich and powerful. They are too busy defending their power and holding on to their wealth. The peace you hunger for will only come at the expense of the powerful. The peace you hunger for will only come when everyone has enough.Peace through justice is the only kind of peace that has any power to satisfy or to last. If you are looking for a god worthy of your worship, look not to the powerful, but to the power of god that lives and breathes in you. The divine power that drives your hunger for justice and peace it was born in you and it lives in you.
Who is this one heralded as the Prince of Peace? Jesus of Nazareth, who had a dream of peace he proclaimed as the Reign of God. A reign that would see the rich are sent away empty because they already have enough and the hungry are filled with good things. A reign where justice and not victory was the way to peace.A poor peasant, a radical rabbi, who the powers that be could not abide, so they killed him hoping to put an end to his dream.
But the dream will not die. The dream is born in you. The dream lives in you. Let it be said of you that you lived that dream; the dream of the Reign of God a dream where justice leads to peace a dream were love conquers all. Let it be said of you that you, dear Theophilus, dear lovers of God. that you too are a Child of God a Princess of Peace, Mighty Councillor, Emmanuel, God with us.
This Christmas holiday week I plan to slow down and reflect on the year that has passed. I will set time aside to find some peace, joy, focus, forgiveness, thankfulness, and renewal for my own soul before the next year begins. I want to take some extra time to just be, and breath, and feel gratitude and joy. The best present I may receive this year may simply be the opportunity to be present. And maybe in that presence I will more deeply experience the very presence and Spirit of my own divinity. READ ON....
Maybe you’re like me, and as a child Christmas meant almost everything to you. But perhaps over the years you’ve had to look for ways to positively reframe the meaning of Christmas as earlier meanings were stripped away? For many of us the process started in elementary school when we had to reconcile with the reality of a Christmas without a real and literal Santa Claus. Then some time later we came to discover a Christmas without a real and literal birth story of Jesus. If you’re like me, learning the truth behind both of these ideas at some point involved a letdown, and maybe even a mourning process.
But what happens when what might possibly be one of the best days of our year is stripped of the two primary reasons for its existence? How do we ever recover (even as adults)? Well, what happened for me is I had to reframe it, and below is what resulted.
My first reframe was a pretty easy one, which was to simply consider that Yeshua of Nazarath (aka Jesus), was indeed born at some point, even if not the 25th of December. Therefore, December 25th could be as good a day as any to celebrate such a bright and sustaining light coming to our planet (as one Christmas song suggests, to “bring us goodness and light.”) So that part wasn’t very challenging.
My next reframing though was a bit more challenging, which was to consider what the day, and the season, would be about going forward.
First I decided that the “Twelve Days of Christmas” (which liturgically refers to the period from Dec. 25 to Jan. 5), would be about giving great presence, not just presents. Sure, I’m ok with presents, and I get it, but I find it a pity that for some of us that’s what the entire season has become about. Hustling and bustling to find the perfect present for everyone. Stressing about whether or not they will like it, or if we can even afford it. And in the process missing out on the very essence of simply spending quality time with those who we love. This clip from Chris Rock on SNL says it all when it comes to that:
Second, I reframed Christmas to be primarily about spreading love and joy, and being more about what we can give than what we can get. Since I was a child I have watched Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol nearly every year, and one of the most powerful scenes in the movie is when the ghost of Scrooge’s partner Jacob Marley pays him a visit to convince him about what is really our most important business in life. Below is a clip of that powerful scene.
So this “twelve days of Christmas” I intend to try extra hard to give the greatest presenceever! And I want to share a few thoughts about how we can all do that:
We can offer great presence to ourselves.
This Christmas holiday week I plan to slow down and reflect on the year that has passed. I will set time aside to find some peace, joy, focus, forgiveness, thankfulness, and renewal for my own soul before the next year begins. I want to take some extra time to just be, and breath, and feel gratitude and joy. The best present I may receive this year may simply be the opportunity to be present. And maybe in that presence I will more deeply experience the very presence and Spirit of my own divinity.
We can offer great presence to others.
This Christmas I plan to offer great presence to those I love; be they family members, friends, a shut in, an orphan, a widow, or someone in need who I haven’t even yet met … maybe even an enemy.
And hopefully this presence can continue the whole year through.
So as Clark Griswold says in the quintessential Christmas comedy Christmas Vacation“Christmas means something different to everybody, and now I know what it means to me.” I resonate with that from my own journey. For me it means giving and getting great presence. How about you?
————
PS, for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, I bid you best wishes and joy on whatever holidays you may celebrate this time of year. To those who do celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very merry Christmas! ~Eric Alexander Originally published here
Looking for a Christmas Miracle
Ian Lawton
Where do you look for miracles? The Christmas miracle is NOT so much that a baby was born in unusual circumstances 2000 years ago. Every new born baby is a miracle. The miracle is that once you see the world as a place full of possibility, hope turns up even in the most surprising places. Once you see the birth of hope in your own life, you can’t believe it took you so long to find it. It’s EVERYWHERE, inside and out. There are two ways to think of miracles and Christmas; as if the miracles happened two thousand years ago, or as if the Christmas story points to miracles that happen ALL the time, all around you, if you have the inner clarity of vision to see it.
When I recently bought my first pair of reading glasses, I hoped to quietly slip into middle age without fanfare, but it was not to be. For some reason the check out guy couldn’t scan the glasses and told me to carry them out with the receipt in case anyone questioned me. So on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, serenaded by alarms and accusing stares, I walked out carrying the symbol of my rapidly aging body high above my head for all to see.
In all seriousness, the glasses were long overdue. I’ve been in denial for years. It’s amazing how long pride can prevent you from finding simple solutions to problems. Back home, it was like scales were removed from my eyes. You wouldn’t believe the functions they include on computer keyboards these days. Now that I can actually see them, I’ve discovered that there are single buttons to jump up and down whole pages on a word document.
When you see something so clearly, you inevitably wonder why it took so long to find the solution. It’s the same with so many things in life. Once you see reality clearly, you can’t believe it took you so long to see it. Suddenly everything becomes clear. When you fall in love, find your passion, realize an injustice, see nature’s beauty, it’s like scales fall off your eyes and everything becomes clear.
Look carefully at the image above. What do you see? A tree with a maze of branches? Or a baby curled in a fetal position? I hope you can see the baby even though I’ve cropped the image. Once you see it, you wonder how it took you so long and every time you look at it, you see the baby immediately. READ ON.... "Looking for a Christmas Miracle" by Ian Lawton
Where do you look for miracles? The Christmas miracle is NOT so much that a baby was born in unusual circumstances 2000 years ago. Every new born baby is a miracle. The miracle is that once you see the world as a place full of possibility, hope turns up even in the most surprising places. Once you see the birth of hope in your own life, you can’t believe it took you so long to find it. It’s EVERYWHERE, inside and out.
There are two ways to think of miracles and Christmas; as if the miracles happened two thousand years ago, or as if the Christmas story points to miracles that happen ALL the time, all around you, if you have the inner clarity of vision to see it.
Think of the Christmas star. The true miracle is not that an unexplained star traveled across the sky to hover above the birthplace of Jesus. The miracle is to look into the night sky today and take in the immensity of the universe and the tiny speck of star dust that we are in the grand scheme of things. When you take in the full grandeur of the universe, the traditional interpretation of the Christmas story as the birth of a savior for a select group of earth’s people falls light a shooting star.
One star, Pollux (Castor’s twin), is 182 trillion miles away from earth, and that’s still in our galaxy. It’s hard to even comprehend that number. If you think of 1 trillion in time, 1 trillion seconds = 32,000 years (30,000 years before the birth of Jesus!) 182 trillion seconds is 5.8 million years. 5.8 million years ago, our ancestors still had opposable big toes and were just starting to walk upright.
So much for Pollux. The largest star yet discovered is Canis Majoris. It is approximately 28800000000000000 miles from earth, if you can get your head around that number. And Canis Majoris is ginormous. You could fit earth inside Canis Majoris so many times it would equate to covering the whole state of Texas with golf balls, 22 inches deep.
I don’t need to go on. You get the point. How does this relate to Christmas? Once you realize the size of the universe, the scope of evolution and the relative tininess of earth, the idea that the God who created ALL of the universe would have some special plan focused on earth alone becomes a little self indulgent. In relation to the size of the earth, we would be lucky to have God’s third cousin stop by for a visit, let alone the only son of God.
And YET, in the midst of this mostly mysterious universe the fact that an individual like you or me can come to self consciousness is a miracle of the highest order. That you can come to realize that your body is made of the same stuff as Pollux and Canis Majoris is an incredible wonder. That you could discover the presence of peace, hope born within you, God within by any name, is the ultimate Christmas miracle. And it’s not confined to Christians. It’s a miracle of human awakening, tied to the evolution of the cosmos itself, and it’s as close as your own breath.
Are you having trouble seeing this peace and potential within, like the baby in the optical illusion? Stop trying. It’s like looking for your glasses. You can’t see them because you don’t have your glasses on. You can’t find peace as if it’s outside of you. You are looking without the benefit of the very thing that will get you there. It’s as if the glasses are lost on the top of your head. Just tilt your head to the sky, take in the night sky, feel your place in the miracle of it all, let your head lower back to the reality in front of you and peace will fall into place, like glasses falling gently back into position. Let peace unfold effortlessly in your life this Christmas.
In the next piece, I address the so called war on Christmas. Whether it’s the wars that wage within, battles in relationships or between nations, let peace be your guiding vision this Christmas. As Calvin Coolidge said,
Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
Originally published here:https://www.soulseeds.com/grapevine/2011/12/looking-for-a-christmas-miracle/
Angels, Virgin Mothers, and the Power of Myth – Sermon Video
Rev. Roger Ray
We read the Christmas story this year in the midst of a year marked by Isil beheadings, CIA torture, abuse of police authority, largely along racial lines, and an ever growing gap between the workers and the super wealthy. The birth narrative says that God enters the world where the big messes remain unsolved. The gospel writers were not ignorant about where babies come from. It is not just modern Bible scholars and progressive thinkers who realize that the virgin birth accounts are not historical. The gospel writers were familiar with myths of virgin births, divine parentage, and incarnation from the culture’s praises heaped up on the pharoses, kings, and generals of their age. So they took the titles and the stories usually used to prop up the reputation of violent, abusive, political figures and creatively “plagiarized” them into a different context. For Luke (1:26-38), the Divine enters the world of the poor, of political refugees, where there is manure on the ground and where people give birth in the back seat of a car with no working heater….because these things cannot be ignored or accepted as a permanent state of affairs. Angels, Virgin Mothers, and the Power of Myth – Sermon Videoby Community Christian Church WATCH HERE... We read the Christmas story this year in the midst of a year marked by Isil beheadings, CIA torture, abuse of police authority, largely along racial lines, and an ever growing gap between the workers and the super wealthy. The birth narrative says that God enters the world where the big messes remain unsolved. The gospel writers were not ignorant about where babies come from. It is not just modern Bible scholars and progressive thinkers who realize that the virgin birth accounts are not historical. The gospel writers were familiar with myths of virgin births, divine parentage, and incarnation from the culture’s praises heaped up on the pharoses, kings, and generals of their age. So they took the titles and the stories usually used to prop up the reputation of violent, abusive, political figures and creatively “plagiarized” them into a different context. For Luke (1:26-38), the Divine enters the world of the poor, of political refugees, where there is manure on the ground and where people give birth in the back seat of a car with no working heater….because these things cannot be ignored or accepted as a permanent state of affairs.
A Christmas Letter to my Community of Readers
John Shelby Spong
For some people this column is their only ecclesiastical community. They might be a single person or a lone family living in places like the Pan Handle of Texas, rural Mississippi or in the low country of South Carolina, who find themselves to be the only non-fundamentalist in a wide area. They do not dislike their neighbors, but they cannot identify with the kind of Christianity they encounter in those places. They write to tell me that this column keeps them religiously sane. They are made to feel like atheists in their own communities when they are in fact nothing but thinking Christians. READ ON....
"A Christmas Letter to my Community of Readers"
by John Shelby Spong
Dear Friends:
As the calendar in the year 2014 dictates this column should arrive at your email address at about 2:00 o’clock A.M. Eastern Standard Time on December 25th. I have a fantasy that all of my east coast readers in the United States set their alarms for 2:00 A.M. each week so that they can receive this column hot off the press! It is possible on this day, perhaps, that some people will attend midnight services on Christmas Eve and then go to an after-church egg nog gathering in someone’s home. Thus, when they finally get home they might actually check their e-mails before going to sleep and will find this column. So fantasy might become reality for perhaps one tenth of one percent of my readers on this one day that will occur about once in a decade when Christmas actually comes on Thursday, our publication date.
Regardless of when this e-mail is opened, I want to express my gratitude to you for being part of this effort. The idea that we could put online a serious adult Bible study and contemporary issue subscription service that would attempt to breach the gap between the Christian academy and the Christian pew and to help us all learn how to think theologically in a new way, was once nothing more than a dream. Each of you has helped to turn that dream into a reality.
2014 has been a good year for this column and for its parent ProgressiveChristianity.org. This column has grown every year since its beginning, now almost fifteen years ago. Today we have readers in many of the countries of the world. I am no longer surprised to get a response or to receive a question from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Russia, Poland, Italy, Thailand or Cambodia. Our regular subscription base keeps our enterprise in the black and we are pleased that all of the profits after expenses, go to the work of ProgressiveChristianity.org. There have been some issues of this column that have been opened as many as 100,000 times in the week of publication. Occasionally a column will go “viral” and be opened, passed on, re-published in other media (with permission of course) and be circulated on large mailing lists, and thus will be read more than a million times. The “champion” in this category was entitled “My Manifesto.” If you would like to read it again, click here or search online. You can read both of its impact and the controversy it engendered.
I have on occasion asked my readers to send a letter or an email to the subject of a column. I recall one column entitled Phyllis’ Garden. It was a human interest story about an eighty year old woman, who left school at age twelve to enter domestic service in England. She lived in government subsidized housing for the elderly poor in the village of Stoneleigh, near Coventry, England. She had cultivated a piece of land no larger than 18 inches by 36 inches that lay beneath the street sign announcing “Greene Street” that was literally outside her door. Her flowers grew over the months of the spring and summer, each blooming in its time. This was her simple, but effective, contribution to the beautification of the world. In a column I told her story and asked my readers to send her a letter by mail (she had no access to a computer) to thank her for the gift she had given the world. Some 600 of you responded and suddenly this elderly woman began to receive more mail each day than all of the other people in her village put together. Some days as many as sixty letters arrived. Her postman, baffled by this sudden upsurge, even asked if she was dealing in drugs!! She became the talk of her village and a local newspaper story appeared about Phyllis’ Garden. Christine and I saw her several times after that before she died and each time she would bring out and show us the large box containing all her letters from all over the world. This became maybe “the” major moment in her life. Sometimes it takes so little to transform a person’s day.
I am frequently amused when I get a letter from a reader that says: “Would you have someone on your staff look up this for me?” I smile because my “staff” is my wonderful wife and me! I do hire a secretary on an hourly basis to type my handwritten column each week as well as the question and answer feature, so that Christine and I can edit it, fact check it and get it to our publisher in Seattle. This typist’s name is Rosemary Halstead and she is the part-time secretary at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Morris Plains, New Jersey. That is the absolute limit of “my staff.” That is why I cannot respond personally to the enormous volume of mail that this column engenders. I do read it all myself, however. I pick out the one that I will attempt to answer in the column and I do try to respond personally to four or five a week. Today I have a backlog of over 5000 questions from readers and that category grows every week. Since I can publish only one a week or 52 a year, the possibility that I will ever catch up is nothing but another of my fantasies.
For some people this column is their only ecclesiastical community. They might be a single person or a lone family living in places like the Pan Handle of Texas, rural Mississippi or in the low country of South Carolina, who find themselves to be the only non-fundamentalist in a wide area. They do not dislike their neighbors, but they cannot identify with the kind of Christianity they encounter in those places. They write to tell me that this column keeps them religiously sane. They are made to feel like atheists in their own communities when they are in fact nothing but thinking Christians.
I try to share with my readers through this column those individual congregations that are open and transformative places of worship. I want the whole world to know about places like the Congregational Church in Hendersonville, North Carolina (and its Ashley lectureship), the Spiritual Life Community in Lake Oswego, Oregon, the Unity Church that worships in Symphony Space at 95th and Broadway in New York City, the United Church of Christ in Greeley, Colorado, the Disciples of Christ Church in Amarillo, Texas, another UCC congregation in Brookfield, Wisconsin and many, many others. The live in and offer an oasis of hope deep in the religious heartland of America. Their clergy or pastors are heroes to me, standing as they do on the front lines, battling both biblical ignorance and deep cultural prejudices based on that biblical ignorance. They stand tall against racism, those forces that want to define women as sub-human and those who treat gay and lesbian people as if they are either mentally sick or morally depraved. I love the chance I have to tell their stories to the whole world. One serendipity of writing this column that I never anticipated is the number of churches that use this column as the material for their adult education program each Sunday. I get reports of rousing discussions and deep engagement.
I have now been writing this column for 15 years now. I have committed myself to continue to do so, God willing, through the end of 2016 at the earliest. I could possibly go beyond that if I continue to be blessed with good health and the lack of senility. Time will tell.
The silent community of my readers and those with whom my readers share this column sustains my life in so many ways. I am grateful for you and to you.
So on this Christmas day I send my wishes that you will find the sacred in the midst of the secular, the holy in the midst of the mundane and God in the presence of human love for that is what both Christianity and individual Christians call the “Incarnation.”
Fear not. God is.
Because I believe that this is so, the call of Christ to us this Christmas season and our mission as God’s church is not to make people more religious, but to free them to live more fully, to love more wastefully and to find the courage to dare to be the deepest fullest self that they can be. That is the vision that caused our ancestors in faith to postulate that on the night when Jesus was born a star shone in the East and angelic choruses’ sang to hillside shepherds more than 2000 years ago.
John Shelby Spong
You can sign up to receive Bishop Spong’s weekly essays, here
The Everywhere God Worship Materials: Christmastime/ Christmas Day
William L. (Bill) Wallace
If we allowed ourselves to meet God everywhere, each day would become a Christmas.
Christmas is not so much a season of the year as a season of the human heart.
Christmas is the festival of the inner child ‑ the celebration of vulnerability and peace, of play and delight, of laughter and tears and of that wonder without which we are alienated from the mystery at the heart of life.
To reverence the child in each human heart is to reverence the Christ everywhere.
There is no temple on earth more expansive than the manger in the human heart.
Christmas is the feast of the child, a celebration of the child in the manger and the child in each of us.
Deeper than the incarnation lies the purple incandescence of the mystery.
Like the wise men of the Christmas story, if we search for the child we will find ‘that of God’.
If we allowed ourselves to meet God everywhere, each day would become a Christmas.
Christmas is not so much a season of the year as a season of the human heart.
Christmas is the festival of the inner child ‑ the celebration of vulnerability and peace, of play and delight, of laughter and tears and of that wonder without which we are alienated from the mystery at the heart of life.
To reverence the child in each human heart is to reverence the Christ everywhere.
There is no temple on earth more expansive than the manger in the human heart.
Christmas is the feast of the child, a celebration of the child in the manger and the child in each of us.
Deeper than the incarnation lies the purple incandescence of the mystery.
Like the wise men of the Christmas story, if we search for the child we will find ‘that of God’.
Both the image and the myth are looking glasses through which we may pass to encounter the mystery.
Christmas reminds us that the inner meaning of what can be seen is as great a mystery as that which cannot be seen.
Our idealizing of childhood may say more about our inability to live as fully functional adults than about the realities of our own childhood.
The Word made flesh is a mystery within culture and yet beyond all cultures.
Christmas comes whenever adults nurture the wonder, love and imagination of their inner child.
Until we can cuddle our own wounded inner child we will not know wholeness
The incarnation is not an invasion by God into a world without divinity but an affirmation of the presence of divinity in all flesh. It is the ultimate denial of the dualistic belief that flesh is unholy and spirit holy. Flesh and spirit are but two manifestations of the one holistic life-force.
Christmas is more than a special day in the year, it is a special way of looking at life- a way that finds the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary.
To see life from the perspective of Christmas is to see life through the eyes of the child.
PRAYERS
O Jesus Christ, whose birthday we celebrate today, may the poverty of the shepherds, the humility of the wise men and the prophetic passion of Mary enable us to discern divinity in all whom the world seeks to dis-empower.
O God, whom we see as the Christ in the stall, help us to create a manger for our Inner Child, that through our nurturing we may break the cycle of violence and replace it with a holy circle of your enfolding love.
May the God of the child delight our adult, may the God of the poor confront our wealth, may the God of the weak mellow our strength; and the blessing of God in human flesh be perceived in us and in all people, now and forever.
May the imagination of the shepherds, the persistence of the wise men, the transforming acceptance of Joseph, the compassion of Mary for her child and for all the oppressed, be in our minds and actions today and always.
May this Christmas be for each of us a time of moving beyond reason to wonder, beyond grasping to letting go, and beyond competition to cooperation, in the power of the Babe of Bethlehem.
POEMS AND REFLECTIONS
SEARCHING FOR THE CHILD
We meet the child in
The mind that travels beyond the known (the Wise Men).
People who do not take themselves too seriously (Kings leaving privilege to search for child).
The spirit that waits and listens (shepherds marrying work and mystery).
The heart that is inclusive (unlike that of the inn keeper).
The person who is prepared to see beyond the limits of traditional morality (Joseph resisting the temptation to put Mary away privately when he found that she was pregnant and he was not the father).
People who don’t let others dehumanize them (Mary forced by bureaucracy to embark on a highly unsuitable journey while she was pregnant, rejected by the inn keeper, yet who retained the ability to sing her analytical song of celebration—the Magnificat).
A PATTERN OF AWARENESS OF GOD
We become aware of God in our dreaming of liberation. God’s dream is justice, peace and the inter-woveness of creation. Not simply a dream for the future but how things are at their deepest level. (Luke 21/25-36)
We become aware of God in our planning for liberation.
identifying the injustice and oppression (Luke 3:1-6) human beings have created in society and in the rest of nature
discerning the causes
determining appropriate courses of action, listening to, learning from and sharing with the oppressed.
We become aware of God in our attitudes which create the conditions for liberation or oppression (Luke 3:7-8)
struggling to avoid the need to be aware
accepting the possibility
changing our attitudes and life-styles
We become aware of God when our song is the song of liberation, the song of the oppressed, the song of the earth, the song of Mary and Jesus, the song of all who walk the Way. (Luke 1:39-55)
God is with us. As Meister Eckhart the famous medieval Christian mystic said ‘God is always at home, it is we who have gone out for a walk’.
CHILDREN OF GOD
The image of people being children of God is a helpful one if it is taken to indicate that there is something of God in each of us. However it is unhelpful if it is used to legitimatize and encourage people into an infantile dependency relationship with a paternalistic otherworldly super power. What we all need is to be empowered as co-workers with the Artist, Sage and Prophet who is in all and through all.
LET ME BE SURROUNDED BY THE CHILDREN
Let me be surrounded by the children,
let my spirit play,
let my spirit sing,
let my spirit dance.
Let me dream of a world where all are one,
for the child within me is the spark of the divine,
the spark of the universe.
THE INCARNATION
The incarnation was not an invasion by God into a world in which divinity was absent but an affirmation that God is present in all the matter and energy, flesh and blood of this Cosmos. It is the ultimate denial of that dualism that asserts that flesh is unholy and spirit is holy, that up is good and down is bad and that there are two worlds the physical and the metaphysical. In contrast the Incarnation affirms that everything is sacred and while many things can be misused and abused by human beings their intrinsic sacredness cannot be destroyed.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
Does the power of the Christmas story depend on its historical accuracy or on what it evokes in our hearts today? Is it a life changing myth or has it degenerated into a piece of commercialized sentimentality?
Could we enrich our Christmas meal by the lighting of candles to remember our loved ones who have died and also by providing opportunities for sharing our own stories?
Can reflection on the powerlessness of the Christ Child help us to see the presence of God in the plight of all refugees and in all those who seek to aid them?
Also see “An Inclusive Christmas Celebration” another section of “Festive Worship” on this website.
While Luke’s narrative, the most detailed account of the birth of Jesus, is lyrical and inspiring, in The Birth of Jesus, Spong persuasively demonstrates it is allegory. Layer by layer, Spong weighs every element of the New Testament stories against Old Testament legends building a convincing case. Spong’s 16 original essays step backward and forward through the scriptures demonstrating why each element was chosen by the early CE writers to establish Jesus’ lineage and divinity. It is a fascinating and persuasive journey and a remarkable illustration of Biblical scholarship.
We are excited to announce this just released book of essays by Bishop John Shelby Spong on Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. While Luke’s narrative, the most detailed account of the birth of Jesus, is lyrical and inspiring, in The Birth of Jesus, Spong persuasively demonstrates it is allegory. Layer by layer, Spong weighs every element of the New Testament stories against Old Testament legends building a convincing case. Spong’s 16 original essays step backward and forward through the scriptures demonstrating why each element was chosen by the early CE writers to establish Jesus’ lineage and divinity. It is a fascinating and persuasive journey and a remarkable illustration of Biblical scholarship.
Bishop Spong’s “Birth of Jesus” essay series* from his weekly newsletter- “A New Christianity for a New World,” has generated more comments from our readers than any other series he has written. As one subscriber wrote, “It all starts with the birth story—get that wrong and we probably get it all wrong.” No one does a better job of getting it right than Spong. And there is always the added bonus with Bishop Spong. He is the consummate teacher. He writes with the primary intention for readers, regardless of their training or background, to get it.
Bishop Spong is a writer for every reader- from the scholar to the lay person. He is clear, concise, inspiring, and vibrant. He is a master at interpretation and elucidation. TheBirth of Jesus is an exciting adventure that challenges dominant assumptions and interpretations and is sure to stimulate and liberate readers.
Due to high amount of orders we are receiving, please allow up to 10 days for delivery.
About the Author
John Shelby Spong, whose books have sold more than a million copies, was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2001. His admirers acclaim him as a teaching bishop who makes contemporary theology accessible to the ordinary layperson — he’s considered the champion of an inclusive faith by many, both inside and outside the Christian church.
A committed Christian who has spent a lifetime studying the Bible and whose life has been deeply shaped by it, Bishop Spong says he was not interested in Bible bashing. “I come to this interpretive task not as an enemy of Christianity,” he says. “I am not even a disillusioned former Christian, as some of my scholar-friends identify themselves. I am a believer who knows and loves the Bible deeply. But I also recognize that parts of it have been used to undergird prejudices and to mask violence.”
A visiting lecturer at Harvard and at universities and churches worldwide, Bishop Spong delivers more than 200 public lectures each year to standing-room-only crowds. His bestselling books include The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, A New Christianity for a New World, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and Here I Stand.
Bishop Spong’s extensive media appearances include a profile segment on 60 Minutes as well as appearances on Good Morning America, Fox News Live, Politically Incorrect, Larry King Live, The O’Reilly Factor, William F. Buckley’s Firing Line, and Extra. Bishop Spong and his wife, Christine Mary Spong, have five children and six grandchildren. They live in New Jersey.
Recently, as I was researching, I was reminded of the truce on the first Christmas of the First World War. Even though it was a series of unofficial cease fires, what happened in Belgium and at other battle sites along the Western Front is a great anti-war statement that illustrates the insanity and inhumanity of war.
Recently, as I was researching, I was reminded of the truce on the first Christmas of the First World War. Even though it was a series of unofficial cease fires, what happened in Belgium and at other battle sites along the Western Front is a great anti-war statement that illustrates the insanity and inhumanity of war.
After Serbian terrorists assassinated the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on June 29, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. They used the assassination as an excuse to retrieve territory they had lost during the Balkan Wars. Germany promptly came to Serbia’s defense.
Germany had been planning for war with France and Russia since the late 19th century. The Chief of the German General Staff had devised a plan in 1899 and revised and expanded it by 1905 to include invading neutral Belgian to attack France and simultaneously declaring war on Russia.
In early August, 1914, Germany swept into Belgium and Luxembourg and progressed rapidly towards their goal – Paris. Soon, however, German progress slowed and a battle line stretching from Lorraine in the south to the English Channel in the north was established. The soldiers on both sides along this Western Front dug trenches and erected barbed wire to strengthen their positions.
The Kaiser had been so confident of an expeditious victory he had told departing troops in early August that they would “be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.” Now reality was settling in and it became apparent to the commanders and to the men that this was going to be a long war.
As December cold enveloped the Western Front, a very remarkable Christmas story developed – an unofficial truce was observed by an estimated 100,000 British and German troops on the first Christmas Eve of the war. Several German troops in the Ypres, Belgium region decorated the area around their trenches with candles and celebrated the season by singing Christmas carols. From their trenches, the British soldiers responded by singing some of their carols. Eventually the two sides shouted Christmas greetings to each other and some dared to enter “No Man’s Land,” the area between opposing trenches, where they shook hands and exchanged small gifts like wine, chocolates and tobacco. The truce also allowed wounded and dead soldiers to be transported behind their lines to receive medical attention or to be buried. Some cooperative burial services were held. The truce lasted through Christmas night in some sectors.
The Times of London printed several of the letters from British soldiers concerning the suspension of hostilities. One soldier wrote, “All joined together in a sing-song, each side taking it in turn to sing a song, and finally they ended up ‘God Save the King’ in which the Saxons sang most heartily!! This is absolutely true.”
In a similar occurrence, Captain Sir Edward Hulse described a sing-song which ended with “Auld Lang Syne” in which English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, and others participated. Hulse said, “It was absolutely astounding, and if I had seen it on a cinematograph film I should have sworn that it was faked!”
Henry Williamson, a nineteen-year-old private, wrote the following to his mother about this exceptionally unique experience:
“Dear Mother, I am writing from the trenches. It is 11 o’clock in the morning. Beside me is a coke fire, opposite me a ‘dug-out’ (wet) with straw in it. The ground is sloppy in the actual trench, but frozen elsewhere. In my mouth is a pipe… in the pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Ha, ha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes, a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British and Germans met and shook hands in the ground between the trenches, and exchanged souvenirs, and shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, and as I write. Marvelous, isn’t it?”
Today the carol that is most associated with that Christmas truce is “Silent Night (Stille Nacht)”, but British soldiers rarely mentioned the song in their letters to those back home. In his memoirs, Graham Williams, a rifleman, said he had never heard this carol before (it only achieved world-wide popularity later). He claimed that “O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)” was the song both sides started singing together. Other songs participating soldiers mentioned in their letters included the 1823 song “Home, Sweet Home,” Stephen Foster’s 1851 song “Old Folks at Home (Swanee River),” the 1912 song “It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary,” that became one of the war’s most well-known songs, and carols including “The First Noel,” “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks,” and “O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree).”
A British captain wrote the following about the resumption of the war on Christmas morning: “At 8.30 I fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with ‘Merry Christmas’ on it, and I climbed on the parapet. [The Germans] put up a sheet with ‘Thank you’ on it, and the German Captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and he fired two shots in the air, and the war was on again.”
Alfred Anderson, the last surviving British soldier who had taken part in the 1914 Christmas truce, told the History News Network, “It was then we discovered that those on the other side were not the savage barbarians we’d been told. They were like us. Why were we led to believe otherwise?”
This unconventional truce might be viewed as a Christmas miracle that allowed men on opposing sides to rediscover the humanity of their enemies and the inhumanity of war. They realized that men on both sides were Christians who celebrated the birth of the Christ child. They probably questioned the futility of war and prayed more fervently for “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men.”
Anam Cara
John O'Donohue
John O’Donohue, poet, philosopher, and scholar, guides you through the spiritual landscape of the Irish imagination. In Anam Cara, Gaelic for “soul friend,” the ancient teachings, stories, and blessings of Celtic wisdom provide such profound insights on the universal themes of friendship, solitude, love, and death.
“When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you. Where before there was anonymity, now there is intimacy; where before there was fear, now there is courage; where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm of grace and gracefulness; where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and in rhythm with your self. When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.” ~Anam CaraREAD ON....
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
by John O'Donohue
Discover the Celtic Circle of Belonging
John O’Donohue, poet, philosopher, and scholar, guides you through the spiritual landscape of the Irish imagination. In Anam Cara, Gaelic for “soul friend,” the ancient teachings, stories, and blessings of Celtic wisdom provide such profound insights on the universal themes of friendship, solitude, love, and death as:
Light is generous
The human heart is never completely born
Love as ancient recognition
The body is the angel of the soul
Solitude is luminous
Beauty likes neglected places
The passionate heart never ages
To benatural is to be holy
Silence is the sister of the divine
Death as an invitation to freedom
Anam Cara is the title of a 1997 bestseller on “Celtic spirituality”, the first publication by Irish author and then-priest John O’Donohue. According to O’Donohue, the Irish term anam cara (lit. “soul-friend”) originates in Irish monasticism, where it was applied to a monk’s spiritual advisor.
The book was an international bestseller and catapulted the author to public notability, as an author and much sought-after speaker and teacher, particularly in the United States. O’Donohue left the priesthood in 2000.As O’Donohue puts it: The term is greatly misconstrued to mean “soul mate”, anam meaning soul and cara meaning friend.
“If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“Your beloved and your friends were once strangers. Somehow at a particular time, they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. Now your life is unimaginable without them. Similarly, your identity and vision are composed of a certain constellation of ideas and feelings that surfaced from the depths of the distance within you. To lose these now would be to lose yourself.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
a public conference for activists, artists, & progressive people of faith
January 29-31, 2015
Be|Art|Now, the 112th Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference, brings you into conversation and reflection with theologians, artists, communities, and art itself. Guided outings will focus on the intersections between arts, spirit, and social change.
Featuring performances and lectures by artist-activists Adriene Thorne {pastor, dancer}, Michael Franti {poet, musician, composer}, Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira {playwright, musician, police officer}, and Tim Holmes {sculptor, philosopher}
Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference is a three-day conference that addresses critical theological, pastoral, and social issues of the day.
This sacred music is absolutely ethereal and enchanting. With a voice like an angel, Peia takes us on a journey that is a meditation, a prayer and a celebration weaved into one. This song speaks of healing power and medicine of Woman, the Moon and the Earth Herself. A Machi is a medicine woman and sometime also a medicine man. May the images here remind us all what a miracle this life is. May we see that though tender and vulnerable our Earth is wise and resilliant beyond all measure. “Where there is Love there is Life ” and here there is a lot of Love. Blessed Be. Peia “Machi”- Four Great Winds WATCH AND LISTEN HERE
Peia “Machi”
from the album Four Great Winds
available now on bandcamp: peia.bandcamp.com/album/four-great-winds
peiasong.com
This sacred music is absolutely ethereal and enchanting. with a voice like an angel, Peia takes us on a journey that is a meditation, a prayer and a celebration weaved into one.
This song speaks of healing power and medicine of Woman, the Moon and the Earth Herself. A Machi is a medicine woman and sometime also a medicine man. May the images here remind us all what a miracle this life is. May we see that though tender and vulnerable our Earth is wise and resilliant beyond all measure. “Where there is Love there is Life ” and here there is a lot of Love. Blessed Be.
credits:
Peia filmed by Akira Chan & Ryan Williams Mitchell
Edited by Akira Chan
akirachanarts.com
with footage from
Esto Es Mexico, director-Diego PernÃa cinematography-David Torres
Planet Earth
Set design
Endearment “Lady Dear” / AlcheMystic Metal Arts
alchemysticmetalarts.com/
Blessings for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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