Pray - December 12, 2018

Photo by Mike Corey

I’ve lived away from family for many years, so rare is the Christmas that I get to spend time with them; some years they make the trip to Connecticut, other years we make the trip to the Midwest. Holiday plans take a lot of work – travel, food, gifts, decorations, making the guest room ready, tidying up for company. And then add the usual seasonal issues – endless Christmas music (even though it’s Advent), our stress meeting the stress of others, and perhaps end of year job duties. This is the Advent many of us know; a season to prepare, stress out, and worry that all will be ready; and we tend to put this all on ourselves, and sometimes above what is important.

As I think of Christmas’ past with family, I recall that all the stuff swirling around – the travel, food, gifts, decorations, guest rooms, and cleanliness of the house are not the things I cherish. It was moments connecting with family and friends, sometimes even strangers…or friends I hadn’t met yet. It was the conversations, the laughter, the joy, the love. It was hearts being open to one another. Sometimes healing happened, other times great thanksgiving, and each time lives were drawn closer together.

We’re in the season of preparing, not just for family and friends, but for Emmanuel, God with us. We busy ourselves with so much. But, in all the busyness, are we taking time to preprayer? Are we taking time each day to pause and make room in our heart for the real blessings of the season? For God, for Christ, for the Spirit, for those we will soon see, and the gifts of joy and love.

Before we know it, we will be in the Christmas season, then Epiphany and so on. The rushing, buying, traveling, cleaning, decorating are not the things that will be cherished between us and our loved ones; it will be those moments when we connect in love with those in our lives with whom God has blessed us. The moments of God with us as we are with one another.

God wants a connection with us too, beyond Advent wreaths, calendars, and hymns. God wants a connection that opens our heart for the love of Christ soon to be with us. God wants us to stop the rushing for just a moment and share our laughter, joy, thanksgivings, concerns, worries, stress; all that lights up our heart…and that clutters our heart.

As we recall the true blessings of this season we find with one another, may we also take time to prepare through prayer with God so we are ready for the greatest gift of all, the love of Christ.

Post by Mike Corey

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”

Embed from Getty Images

From Psalm 28:

        The Lord is my strength and my shield;

                    my heart trusts in him, and I have been helped;

        Therefore my heart dances for joy,

                    and in my song will I praise him.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” says one popular song you’ve probably heard lately.  But as I go about my daily life, I’m struck by how much it’s sounding like Christmas. Our world right now is saturated with music looking forward to Christmas. It’s everywhere you go, as the song says—in shopping malls, on the radio, in elevators and doctors’ offices, in television commercials and at the movie theatres. I even had Christmas-themed hold music on a phone call yesterday.

These songs—both the secular ones and the traditional Christian hymns—go a long way towards getting is un the holiday spirit.  They remind us of warm, cozy evenings spent with family and friends; they invite us to be jolly and cheerful; they offer solace for people who struggle with anxiety, loneliness, or fear, particularly in this time of year. Many cherish attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah, or of going to a local parish’s service of Lessons and Carols. And I’m sure I’m not alone in looking forward to hearty singing at a midnight service on Christmas Eve.

The world—and the church—often uses music to set a tone, to get us in a particular mindset or mood. But how can we use the music in our lives more intentionally, as a way of responding to God? In Psalm 28, praising God in song is a response to God’s steadfast love. The psalmist, thankful for God’s grace and protection, offers not faint praise but jubilant dance and song.

St. Augustine famously wrote that those who sing, pray twice. In this season of preparation and renewal, consider which familiar songs embody how you might respond to God’s working in your life. Perhaps, this Advent, the quiet expectancy of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” reflects your sense of anticipation. Or perhaps the majesty and awe of “Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending” speaks to your yearning for Christ’s glorious reign. In this season filled with so many familiar songs, which songs can you use in your own prayer life?

Post by Jett McAlister

Bethlehem Down

Embed from Getty Images

Bethlehem Down
Words by Bruce Blunt (1899-1957)
Music by Peter Warlock (1894-1930)

“When He is King we will give him the King's gifts,
Myrrh for its sweetness, and gold for a crown,
Beautiful robes,” said the young girl to Joseph,
Fair with her first-born on Bethlehem Down.

Bethlehem Down is full of the starlight
Winds for the spices, and stars for the gold,
Mary for sleep, and for lullaby music
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.

When He is King they will clothe him in grave-sheets,
Myrrh for embalming, and wood for a crown,
He that lies now in the white arms of Mary,
Sleeping so lightly on Bethlehem Down.

Here He has peace and a short while for dreaming,
Close huddled oxen to keep him from cold,
Mary for love, and for lullaby music
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.

__________________

Reflection by Benjamin Straley 

I know this is an Advent blog, but after the Fourth Sunday of Advent, my mind has shifted over toward Christmas, and this carol text and its musical setting are among my very favorites. Its origins are a bit peculiar, however. 

It came about as a submission to the London Daily Telegraph’s annual carol contest.  The poet, Bruce Blunt, and his friend, the composer, Peter Warlock were notorious drunks, and found themselves strapped for cash approaching Christmas. So they entered the Telegraph’s contest, duly won, and used the prize money to finance an “immortal carouse” on Christmas Eve 1927.

Despite the impure motivation of its composition, the haunting poignancy of the text, and the music’s ability to convey at once the comfort of Mary’s arms as well as the agony of the Passion, drive me to listen to it over and over again during the Advent and Christmas seasons.

The first stanza, with Mary’s hopes for her newborn, who she knows is the Son of God, stand in stark contrast to the fulfillment of those hopes in the third stanza. I’m not so sure Mary was as naïve as the poet makes out, but even if she understood that Jesus would be King, maybe she didn’t yet know what that would mean, ultimately.  Her hopes were the hopes of a nation – but Jesus’ death defied all their expectations of what the Messiah looked like.

I wonder, when we talk about Hope – and Advent as a season of Hope – what kind of Hope do we hold in our spiritual imaginations? Is it the warm hope of an infant laid in a manger, or it is a cruciform hope – one that allows its fulfillment to be realized in ways which we might not readily embrace.  As I write this, I think, perhaps, “Where is my Christmas joy?” It’s there, I assure you.  But as I sit here at my desk, my eyes notice the liturgical calendar to the right of my computer, and I can’t help but be reminded that the Twelve Days of Christmas include the Feast Days of St. Stephen, the first martyr, The Holy Innocents, and St. Thomas Becket, murdered archbishop of Canterbury. The Church has always held joy and suffering in tension with one another, it would seem.  It is this nuanced understanding of hope, viewed through a Christian lens, that prevents our celebrations of Christmas from being the sanitized, consumer-driven ones we see all around us this time of year.

So as we near the end of our Advent journey, and our preparations lead us ever closer to our commemoration of the Incarnation, I wish you who read this a truly blessed Christmas, one filled with an abundance of peace, a peace which surpasses all our understanding.

Oh, how I need those candles . . .

Embed from Getty Images

By Ann Perrott

   Each week, when a candle is lit on the Advent wreath, I am reminded that Jesus is the ‘light of the world.’  In between those Advent Sundays part of my focus turns to my work and life as I know it.  And, of course there is a return to reports of war, hunger, homelessness, prison conditions and every other bad thing that is going on in the world.  I can easily feel exhausted with all of it. Why does hope feel so out of reach to me these days?  I have always been an optimist—constantly looking at the glass half full, no matter what the world’s condition.  And even though this Advent season brings a personal grief to my family, I feel overwhelmingly bogged down with hopelessness lately that is evident in almost every corner of the world.

 I have come to understand (after reading a lot of Richard Rohr), that what I need to do is to let go of the “self,” the ego that weighs me down.  My own world view is skewed.  I think to myself, “Why isn’t something being done in this country or that one?  Don’t we have to fix this now before too many thousands more people are killed or hurt?  How many wars can the world take at one time, how many horrible dictators?  So much devastation and I cannot do a thing about it.  I hope God knows how I feel about that situation in the Philippines.”  I feel powerless, and I believe it is because I take God out of the equation and replace it with Ann.  When I do that, darkness can be like a canvas in my life, covering up the light I may be missing.

 Then there is the understanding I have that darkness is a part of life.  There are a lot of wonderful things happening in the world—even all around me.  I have to have better eyes to see and leave the world’s problems to God.