MERRY CHRISTMAS 2024

 Each one of us is called to reflection, prayer, preparation and action in these challenging times.

Advent this year has been meaningful as we brought out  candles and the Dickens Village, decorated a Christmas Tree and posted a wreath and lights outside. We've read  scripture  stories of hope and anticipation and peace and love .  The story  of Mary's visit and Elizabeth's baby "leaping for joy" was especially inspiring to me this year.

Whatever one's faith tradition, the natural world's slowing down and darkening toward the Winter Solstice brings feelings of loneliness as well as connection. I've reminisced on  Christmas Seasons past of Joy as well as Sadness.... family meals and parties, pepper nuts and cookies, baked hash brown potatoes and Christmas ham or turkey, hot chocolate and popcorn, football games and "snow bowls", singing carols with family, card games and charades, electric trains and stuffies, Midnight Mass and Santa Lucia,  visiting loved ones in hospital and parents dying during the holidays.

These  'Reflections' come in light of a few of my present day Advent activities:

.....The unadulterated  joy of the Westchester 3rd Grade Circus in Des Peres , Missouri;

.....Making a gingerbread house with granddaughters;

.....Creating paper airplanes and  enjoying a live production of "Christmas Carol" with grandsons;

.....Watching  grandsons' hoops team make the finals of the Y basketball winter league   

      championship;

.....Reading and listening to meditations by Diana Butler Bass, John Dominic Crossan, and Reggie Williams on Justice and Joy and Luke and Paul and the Harlem Renaissance and  Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Christian Mystic Howard Thurman has a couple of poems for us:

 I Will Light Candles This Christmas

I will light Candles this Christmas,

Candles of joy despite all the 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 year long.

 ~~~~~~~~

When the Song of the Angels Is Stilled

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and the princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

The work of Christmas begins:

     To find the lost,

     To heal the broken,

     To feed the hungry,

     To release the prisoner,

     To rebuild the nations,

     To bring peace among people,

     To make music in the heart.

These two poems are from the book by Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas. You can learn more about Howard Thurman and get a list of his books on Wikipedia: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman

The Winter Solstice comes and goes.  Light springs forth  here in Dark December and Christmas arrives.   The days are now getting longer in the Northern Hemisphere.

For me, the Unity of All Humanity shines... and Hope and History Rhyme.

What have you been reading and thinking and doing?

MERRY CHRISTMAS

                                       HAPPY NEW YEAR