Merry Christmas 2020
As Advent slowly gives way to Christmas, and the Winter Solstice promises that more light will soon break through our darkness, life here feels wistful: sorrow mixing with quiet anticipation. Throughout this year we have known both grief and joy, uncertainty and hope both at the same time. Clearly, we are being called to learn living with paradox, but it’s been rough going – even from the relative safety and solitude of our small, quiet home in Western Massachusetts. Some lives continue-on with real albeit modest inconveniences while others are consumed by chaos, suffering, anxiety, fear, and death. From within our bubble of privilege, we are learning what St. Paul meant when he told the early faith community in Rome that we must learn to practice waiting in patience:
The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, so that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (In this we can trust that) all things work together for good for those who love God and live according to the wisdom of creation.
This year I have learned that the early Celtic Christians refused to waste their waiting. Believing that when the Word of God became flesh at Christmas, God was reminding us that what was true in the beginning is still true today: the Holy created humans in the sacred image so we, like creation, are infused with original blessing, not original sin. Each day becomes another opportunity to live into God’s goodness in our ordinary lives. This regularly floated to the surface for me over the past ten months as I rediscovered what is most important: love, using limited resources wisely, going deeper into prayer, beauty, silence, and nature and giving new attention to small acts of tenderness. The Irish poet, John O’Donohue, wrote:
At Christmas, time deepens. The Celtic imagination knew that time is eternity in disguise. They embraced the day as a sacred space. Christmas reminds us to glory in the simplicity and wonder of one day; it unveils the extraordinary that our hurried lives conceal and neglect. We have been given such immense possibilities. We desperately need to make clearances in our entangled lives to let our souls breathe. We must take care of ourselves and especially our suffering brothers and sisters.
To hallow each day as sacramental is to claim time, love, words, prayers, thoughts, songs, house-cleaning, dishwashing, laundry, home-cooked meals, short walks in the wetlands, and whatever time remains as gifts too precious to take for granted. For when they are cherished and savored, these little things become restorative. I've long suspected that the "small is holy" and now we’re learning what that means from the inside out. Henri Nouwen put it like this:
Joyful persons see with open eyes the hard reality of human existence and at the same time are not imprisoned by it. They have no illusion about the evil powers that roam around, “looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8), but they also know that death has no final power. They suffer with those who suffer, yet they do not hold on to suffering; they point beyond it to an everlasting peace.
Many of my plans did NOT happen in 2020 the way we planned, but what DID take place became holy ground – and I am so grateful to have shared some of it with you. May all that is holy continue to ground you in grace and love you from the inside out.
Grace and peace,
James
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