Christmas blessing

God is with us.
The Beloved comes as a child,
tender and willing,
in deepest love.

No power in our hands can undo
this great gentleness;
no tragedy can overcome this light.

May the deep peace
of God’s gentle presence
awaken you to wonder
and fill you with love.

May the deep blessing
of God’s peace with us
bring you peace
with all living things.

May the tender love of God
bring you joy.

Alleluia!

— December 24, 2014

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O holy night

O Come, Beloved,
in this night of our travail
in which we cannot see;
breathe with us, in us,
and be the saving arm around us.

O Life-making Word,
speak your light in our heartbreaking darkness,
and call this world into being anew.

O Borning God,
in the well of this deep night
wrap all our expectations in your mystery,
shroud in darkness all our knowing
of how you are among us,
bundle tightly our wisdom
in your smallest box,
and come to us otherwise.

O Intimate Dawning,
bear us through the night
and birth us into a new day,
changed,
infant,
breathing.

— December 23, 2014

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Listen to Gabriel

Gabriel was sent to Nazareth in Galilee,
to Mary, engaged to Joseph.

         In the particular real things around you
         look for God.

He said, “Greetings, favored one!
The Lord is with you.”

         Sitting here now at your computer,
         God is with you. Welcome the Holy One.

She was perplexed, but the angel said,
“Do not be afraid.”

         God’s whispers can rattle us.
         Don’t be afraid to listen.

“You will conceive a son,
and he will be great.”

         God’s grace is blooming in you.
         Nourish the Holy within.

“He will rule over the house of Jacob forever;
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

         God is renewing all of Creation.
         Trust your part in the Great Work.

“How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you.”

         It’s not about you, but God,
         whose goodness can use what life you offer.

“Now Elizabeth in her old age has conceived.
For nothing will be impossible with God.”

         Nothing.
         Nothing.

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord;
let it be with me according to your word.”

         Yes.
         Yes.

Then the angel departed from her.
         We don’t always feel God’s presence;
         but the promise has already been kept.

[Luke 1.26-38]

— December 22, 2014

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The flesh of God

In my vast little darkness
         what is that, dim and moving?
                  A divine child blooms within.
                  
O rose-dawning, O splendor,
         O nebula unfurling,
                  how small you begin!

How might I tend you, little one
         who has chosen me?
                  How might I adore?

How do I bear you, Infinite Love,
         tender Life-Longing,
                  unfolding in me?

How do I become your enclosure,
          your safe passage,
                 an opening for you?
           
How shall we raise you up,
         set you on your way
                  to live your own life?

— December 19, 2014

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Magnificat

My soul is God’s glory. Amazing.
         I am awed. I am grateful.

The world thought me lowly
         but I am blessed.

I’ve been given the Holy One’s power: mercy,
         mercy I pass on to generations.

The strength of God blinds the proud,
         confounds those deluded by power.

The Just One takes down the powerful,
         vacates them from their boardrooms,

and raises up the dispossessed,
         gives them justice and honor.

God has filled the hungry with good things
         and sent the rich away whining.

The Great One has helped the little ones,
         with mercy toward the vulnerable,

as always, from the beginning,
         as promised to Abraham and Sarah,

our ancestors,
         and forever.

(Luke 1.46-55)

— December 18, 2017

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Emmanuel

Beloved, this day and every day
         I am with you.

You are my flesh; I your longing;
         you my muscle, I your nerve.

Each day I leave my homeland
         to marry you.

I abandon the palace of clouds
         to blossom into this world.

I touch you in the feel of smooth stone,
         sound of the sea.

I wrap arms around you
         in those you love, and have.

In life I am your shadow;
         in death I am that shadow.

I am both sides
         of the curtain of absence.

The word without throat or lips
         rising in the deepest unknowing,

the unhearable voice in your night agonies,
         it is I.

I am your breathing, you are my song,
         you my trembling, I your strength.

We are what only can be we,
         this courage, this beauty.

We are this world’s dawn,
         the light that is we.

Go forth into this day,
         this long unfolding of us,

and may it be for me
         according to your way.

—December 17, 2014

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Annunciation

An ordinary life you have,
like baked bread, the aroma of love,
like old wood, edges worn from kindness.

In a moment’s pause, a small step aside
from the rush, the proof—
the abyss opens. Heaven inhales.

Deep, wordless, you sense
wings, breathing, Presence.
Silence speaks.

Sunlight on a plain rock,
music of a flower not usual
for this season: You are Beloved.

The Infinite names you, adores,
finds in you, in your flesh, your voice,
your hands, a place to live.

What is within you is holy.
What is of you is of God, Mystery
spiraling out from you like a nebula, a child.

You will not cease being ordinary,
nor feel different. You will bear
the Divine made infant into the world

if only moment
by moment you say
Yes.

—December 16, 2014

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To find the child

To find the child
one must see the star.
To see the star one must go into the darkness,
the pain, the fear, the emptiness,
the hidden weeping,
the heart’s dark wounds.
Only in the darkness
            can the be stars seen.

To find the child
one must hear the angels.
To hear the angels
one must listen in silence and solitude,
in perfect speechlessness,
in attentive adoration to the Mystery.
Only in such stillness
            are the angels heard.

To find the child
one must enter the stable.
To enter the stable
one must stoop,
decline all palaces, all safety,
all familiarity or fortification,
and settle into poverty.
Only in such humility
            is the stable entered.

To find the child
one must see the birth.
To see the birth
one must be awakened
to the heart of all things
beating in one’s soul,
the light of God shining in one’s hands.
One must be willing to speak
alone with one’s eyes.
Only in awakening
            will the birth be seen.

To find the child,
seek in the darkness,
lay your heart open,
and discover therein
            light unconquered.

—December 15, 2014

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Advent

In the black
darkness
little fists of light,
glimmering, moving.
They will become
stars, hands, arms,
a choir swooping around us.

In the black
mystery
a spirit, a moving,
a pouring out.
It will rain upon us,
sweep us like wind,
to comfort those who mourn,
to brace the oppressed,
to build up ruins,
to make ruins worthy
of the One who will re-
work the black stones.

In the black
days
the messiah
enters the world
from beneath
the black streets.
He knows what he’s
getting into.

In the black
people singing,
a tear,
a cry of hope.
It will become us.

In the black
history of us,
the ruined cities,
little palms of light,
people
huddling,
singing,
looking ahead.
They know what’s
getting into us.

December 12, 2014

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Into this darkness

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.                                    

Advent takes on a different feel from the rest of the year: we hang lights, put up decorations, sing about peace and joy. But there always seem to be these dark intrusions into our Christmas preparations: untimely deaths, December tragedies, school shootings, protests over racial injustice, end of the year layoffs…. How unfortunate, we say, that these agonies come right at Christmas time.

But this is the true setting of Christmas. It is into this darkness that God comes to be with us, into our suffering and struggles, into our brokenness and sin, into our loneliness, into our injustice and even into our distracted shallowness and complacency. Christ chooses to be among us not in the grandeur of the temple but in the rough stable of our real lives. The words of the psalms and the prophets that lead us toward Christmas are not happy congratulations, but the lament of the poor, the longing for redemption. The cry of the oppressed, the song of the widow, the silence of the people searching for the way, this is the song of Advent. This is the world that God enters into to accompany, to bless, to heal, to change. The tragedies we lament don’t intrude on Christmas: it is Christmas that intrudes on the ways of the world.

Advent is when we lift up our heads in the hospital waiting room and the empty bed, in the tear-gassed streets and embattled towns, in the Ebola wards and refugee camps, in the dark kitchens and the breadlines— and rejoice: it is into this darkness that the Holy One comes to walk with us, into this sorrow, this difficulty, this hope. Here, now, for these people, O come, O come, Emmanuel.

          Deep Blessings, Pastor Steve

December 11, 2014

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