Christmas Reflections

A couple of nights ago, I went searching through my shelves for my next book. And I stumbled, as habitual book buyers like myself tend to, on a little volume that I’d received last year and forgotten.

My sister ordered it for Christmas, but due to really high demand I didn’t receive it until January – and then I couldn’t bring myself to read it, a collection of essays curated by Emma Thompson and Greg Wise called Last Christmas. It wasn’t the right time of year. I was in the post-holiday funk, exacerbated by another COVID wave, and the very last thing I wanted to do was think more about Christmas, eleven and a half months away.

But now, the time seemed right. Deep into Advent, the days growing shorter and the nights longer, wading into the complex feelings of this holiday season, I was primed and ready.

And what I’ve found so far is a delight. The book takes reflections from a wide variety of people – political refugees, famous actors, people who have experienced homelessness, and well-known tv hosts – and puts them all together under the theme of memories of Christmases past and hopes for future ones.

The entries are arranged alphabetically by author’s first name, so there’s no organization based on how famous the people are, or their life situations. Already, I’ve read a reflection by someone who experienced homelessness, by someone whose memories of Christmas Eve and a large family gathering are very much in line with my own Christmases at Grandma’s while growing up, and (I was delighted to find), a vicar.

I am reminded, reading these essays, that Christmas is a time fraught with feelings for many of us – whether or not we would describe ourselves as Christ-followers. It represents a season of great hope and possibility; a time of grief and deep nostalgia; a chance to embrace and celebrate, or a time of high risk for illness, injury, recurring addictions.

It can bring out the best or worst in all of us. That’s part of what makes it so compelling.

The vicar, a clergyman in the Anglican church named Ashley Collishaw, writes in his essay that “Christmas is part of the day job, and yet the weight of the season has never diminished. It still holds magic and meaning.”

But what is the magic and meaning for us?

I have been thinking about this a lot. I’m reading this devotional by Kate Bowler, and watching this video in Sunday School; lighting my Advent candles and wondering: How do I prepare for Jesus’ coming? How do I see that Emmanuel, God with us, is already here? What can I do? What’s stopping me?

I hope you’re taking time in this Advent season to ponder these questions, too. (Spoiler alert: there are no easy answers. But I find that’s true of the best questions.)

As I do, I keep returning to a quote that I first heard some seven Christmases ago. It’s from D.L. Mayfield’s Brutally Honest Christmas Letter, which is no longer posted in its entirety, but which you can find pieces of online.

It says: “But perhaps the most significant thing is that Jesus is no longer an abstract person, a walking theology, a list of do’s and don’t’s to me. This is the year I recognized him as my battered, bruised brother, and I see how he never once left my side.”

Perhaps, beyond all the noise of this season, the pain and the hurt, the power and the possibility, the beauty and the longing, we can hear this: that Jesus is by our side. In the muck and mire, on the mountaintop; in the silent night and in the angels’ chorus: he is with us. Now and forever.

Whatever Christmas brings to us this year, or doesn’t; whatever we do to prepare ourselves, or don’t; this much remains true.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

-Pastor Jen

The Future…and the Past

I have noted in difficult and uncertain present moments that the need for a little reflection backwards goes a long way. I don’t know about you, but I struggle with decisions and directions — the “fork in the road” type that are part of life’s journey. Which way? I don’t know.

When I stop long enough to look back over my life, I can see clearly how God has led me along — sometimes even into hard seasons so necessary. Trying not to be simplistic or over-spiritual about life, I believe my journey and yours too to be sacred — filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit as it unfolds and sometimes changes directions.

My dear friend and colleague Judi Geake is helping me once again to rest in this, and find comfort when the present living moment seems up in the air. Yesterday at our staff gathering she read this poem, from John O’Donohue, that seems to capture both the anticipatory excitement and exhaustive unknown about new chapters of life:

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety And the gray promises that sameness whispered, Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And out you stepped onto new ground, Your eyes young again with energy and dream, A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of this opening; Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure; Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space between Us

Then, this morning while searching for a book in the church library, a poster-board sign leaning against her desk, likely brought by by someone and left says this:

“I trust the next chapter because I know the author.”

here’s much about life’s journey and direction that’s always up for grabs. Growing older I realize how much I keep waiting for that to change, instead of embracing the journey as it is in all its mysteries. What helps me in this is faith in the One who bears all good gifts, and whose will is always for good, and who is present and active in my journey, sometimes pushing, sometimes pulling me along. I’ll admit I am one of those crazy enough to believe such a thing and who finds a settled comfort in God’s presence and promises. In the end, it also beckons me forward as the poem says, “awakening your spirit to adventure”, and as the poster-board says, “because I know the author.”

That’s enough to face the unknowns and big decisions ahead with hope.

Question — Where do these thoughts settle in your own spirit and on our own journey in the season? How is God’s Spirit speaking to you?

Love From Here, and thanks to Judi!

Peter Hawkinson

The Future…and the Past

I have noted in difficult and uncertain present moments that the need for a little reflection backwards goes a long way. I don’t know about you, but I struggle with decisions and directions — the “fork in the road” type that are part of life’s journey. Which way? I don’t know.

When I stop long enough to look back over my life, I can see clearly how God has led me along — sometimes even into hard seasons so necessary. Trying not to be simplistic or over-spiritual about life, I believe my journey and yours too to be sacred — filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit as it unfolds and sometimes changes directions.

My dear friend and colleague Judi Geake is helping me once again to rest in this, and find comfort when the present living moment seems up in the air. Yesterday at our staff gathering she read this poem, from John O’Donohue, that seems to capture both the anticipatory excitement and exhaustive unknown about new chapters of life:

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety And the gray promises that sameness whispered, Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And out you stepped onto new ground, Your eyes young again with energy and dream, A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of this opening; Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure; Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space between Us

Then, this morning while searching for a book in the church library, a poster-board sign leaning against her desk, likely brought by by someone and left says this:

“I trust the next chapter because I know the author.”

here’s much about life’s journey and direction that’s always up for grabs. Growing older I realize how much I keep waiting for that to change, instead of embracing the journey as it is in all its mysteries. What helps me in this is faith in the One who bears all good gifts, and whose will is always for good, and who is present and active in my journey, sometimes pushing, sometimes pulling me along. I’ll admit I am one of those crazy enough to believe such a thing and who finds a settled comfort in God’s presence and promises. In the end, it also beckons me forward as the poem says, “awakening your spirit to adventure”, and as the poster-board says, “because I know the author.”

That’s enough to face the unknowns and big decisions ahead with hope.

Question — Where do these thoughts settle in your own spirit and on our own journey in the season? How is God’s Spirit speaking to you?

Love From Here, and thanks to Judi!

Peter Hawkinson