Advent 4 2015 04 Christmas Eve: a tangle of blood, fear, and pain

Marg Herder

<Even after it was decided that as a lesbian I was not worthy of [God], of my church—even after I stopped attending weekly services—I still stubbornly showed up late at night on Christmas Eve…[The congregants weren’t] the ones who deemed me unworthy. That decision was handed down by a very few, the men who sat in front, wore the black robes, and loved the sound of words...it started getting harder to go. As time passed, church stopped feeling like my home, stopped feeling like my intimate sacred place. It started feeling like my presence was an unwelcome intrusion in someone else’s celebration. The reality of how “Christian[ist]s” felt about people like me was growing into a crushing weight in my chest…As the choir sang, and the ministers spoke, and the candles flickered, for the first time I saw Mary in all of it. A young woman in need of a safe place. A young woman denied entrance. A young woman giving birth to the Human One anyway, in an inauspicious tangle of blood, fear, and pain…I’m thinking about it because it’s where I first noticed Mary. And I need her now. I need to sit with her as the music fills all the space between the stone walls and my soul. I need to feel her abandon, her determination, her willingness, as well as her human weakness. I need to feel her gently take my hand, and ask if I will stay, if I will sit with her after the last note of the postlude has faded, after the people have gotten in their cars and driven away, after the candles have been snuffed, and the sanctuary becomes again, as it so often is, empty and dark. Because there, in that place, at that time, I would dare to speak my secrets, quietly, haltingly, and she would speak hers to me. I’d tell her how I’m confused by this incarnation. How I skirt around the edges of surrender because I’m scared and hurt so much of the time. How I don’t understand a way to abide the pervasive violence and anger crashing around me. I’d tell her how ashamed I am that I can’t figure out how to forgive all the people who deny me a place to rest, who send me away alone. I’d tell her about my desperate need to have my pain be known, be seen, be felt. I’d tell her how I want those who have hurt me to know the weight of the burdens they have laid upon me, before I put those burdens down. I’d admit to her everything about me that I know isn’t right, isn’t attractive, isn’t helpful, isn’t loving, but is authentically who I am. And she would listen, and nod, and release my hand so I could wipe my eyes, but then gently take it back into hers again. And after I had finished speaking, in the darkened sanctuary on Christmas Eve, she would softly speak to me, telling me how she learned to set everything aside: her life, her pride, her family, her plans, and most of all, her fear. She would pray over me, asking her child, Christ/Sophia, to help me do the same. And then, right before I stood up to return to my life, she would stop me, just to make sure I understood the most important part, the part everyone has missed all these years. In finding the courage to become who God created her to be, she proved that we are all worthy of giving birth to the Human One, each of us. And that, Mary would say, must always be accomplished in an inauspicious tangle of blood, fear, and pain..>

Originally posted here: http://bit.ly/1mBGwkP
Marg Herder is a writer, audio artist, photographer, and feminist spiritual seeker. She currently serves as Director of Public Information for EEWC-Christian Feminism Today.
http://www.evangelicalsforsocialaction.org/
http://www.margherder.com/

Advent 4 2015 03 Wednesday

My mama, she told me to eat all my greens, my squash, and my okra, and my butter beans. She said that I'd grow up full-figured and tall and in love with me all of the fellers would fall. Now in matters of spirit my mama had smarts, she said, "Don't be content with the sum of your parts. You're not just a body, you're a heart, and soul, you're not just a part, you're a whole." Now the truth of our beauty is a bright inner glow 'cause we're all just the same down inside, don't you know, and a gal or a feller who is a good speller knows a woman's just a man with a wo. Wo, wo, wo, wo! Don't be a quitter, give it all that you can! Be a transmitter of love across the land! And just like a streetlight on a bald-headed man, Shine ! Shine ! Shine ! 

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, a monastic community of The Episcopal Church & The Anglican Church of Canada's AdventWord of the day.

Ms. Perry Payne Millner​ in Keith Thompson​'s Kooky Tunes

Advent 4 2015 02 Tuesday

If we want to get God’s vision for our life, we must want to hear it, we must withdraw to hear it, and then we must wait to hear it. “…I will station myself…” I will stay put, I will unplug, I will stop the internal chatter, I will concentrate on this one conversation, on of joyful thanksgiving and prayerful sharing with God. Most of the time we’re running so revved up, we can't get slowed down enough to tune into God. So, how do we slow down? We take deep breaths. Pull in the calm of God's Holy Spirit and let go of the day, the cares, the worries. We empty our mind with each exhalation of breath. We relax our muscles, we let the tension drain out, and we focus the mind to a pinpoint. The most common form of praying in the Hebrew Scriptures is standing with eyes wide open looking up to heaven and talking out loud to God. Not a speech, not poetry, not even complete sentences. Then wait and listen for that still small voice. Expect a dream, an insight, a whisper. This is the faith factor where you wait expectantly. Waiting on God is never a waste of time. In fact, it's some of the best time you are ever going to invest in your life. - Rick Warren, sort of

Advent 2015 - Winter Solstice - Blue Eucharist

The 2015 Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice happens at 11:49 pm EST tonight.  This is the shortest day of the year and in some traditions also called the Longest Night, the day in the Advent season marking the longest night of the year. On this day, some churches hold a church service that honours people that have lost loved ones in that year. The service is called a Blue Eucharist and Rev. Nancy C. Townely, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, has a beautiful liturgy. Here are some passages:

In the midst of festivities, shouts, and bright lights, we feel the darkness of our souls. Come, God of power and Light, help us. In the midst of gatherings, we feel alone and alienated. Come, God of peace and Hope, hear our cries.  In the midst of celebration, our hearts cry out. Lord, hear us and come to us. Bring us peace.

God of love and understanding, we gather here this evening to confront our pain in the midst of the world's celebration. Help us to know that you are present with us in all of our moods and feelings and seasons. Grant us a taste of the hope, peace, joy and love that you promise to all of your people. We light four candles tonight in remembrance of our loved ones.

One candle represents our Grief. We own the pain of losing loved ones, of dreams that go unfulfilled, of hopes that evaporate in despair. One candle represents our courage. It symbolizes the courage to confront our sorrow, to comfort each other, to share our feelings honestly and openly with each other, and to dare to hope in the midst of pain. One candle represents our memories. For the times we laughed together, cried together, were angry at each other or overjoyed with each other. We light this candle for the memories of caring and joy we shared together. The last candle represents our love. The love we have given, and the love we have received. The love that has gone unacknowledged and unfelt, and the love that has been shared in times of joy and sorrow.

Comforting God, wrap us in your presence in this time of remembrance. With these candles, help us find your light, a light that will guide us day-by-day, step-by-step, as we try to live life fully and wholly. We cherish the special ways in which our loved ones have touched us. We thank you for the gift their lives have been to us. Now comfort us. Encourage us. Empower us. AMEN.

Advent 4 2015 01 Monday

Artist: Fred Mathews

<<I can guarantee this truth: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me. These little ones believe in me. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.>>

The older we get, the harder it is to think like a child, to act like a child, to experience life with open astonishment, to allow ourselves the freedom of simple trust. As children we had a sense of wonder. Our eyes were wide open and drinking in the fascinating gifts we beheld…Our thirsty souls could not have enough of the wonders of creation.

Then life takes over and rent has to be paid and just when you get ahead your tooth falls out or some somagun backs in to you or the coffee pot breaks and it’s not like there’s no time for dreaming, it’s just that anything we ever dreamed of hasn’t come true yet, so why should we expect any good dreams to come true in the future…we just become too weary to dream again and step away from the banquet of life.

The natural gift of wonder God gave us as children was meant to be kept alive.…Instead we let the world and all its cares anesthetize us in to walking through life numb, asleep, possibly to avoid feeling so pain is kept at bay, certainly to avoid disappointment from dreaming any more.
Have you ever been all excited about giving a gift to someone and having them receive it with a dull expression or, even worse, not recognizing the gift or not thanking you at all. It really turns you off from ever gifting them again. Think of how the Universe responds when we walk thankslessly through all the miracles we’re given each moment of our day.

Think too, how the sight of a newborn child, for some, is enough to turn the hardest heart in to mush, and an immediate reaction for many is to start to play with the child on its own level as the child begins to experience the miracles around its own field of perception. Our scriptures bid us over and again, to, Awake! To stay awake ! To keep watch! To Fear Not ! and to Arise and shine, for our light has come, and the glory of God rises upon us.

Let’s make sure we watch for the birth of the Child with the expectation of a small child assured of all the gifts Christmas morning will bring.

the Octave of Christmas 2015 December 20: O Clavis David: O Key of David

textile artist Linda Witte Henke http://bit.ly/1kbhzLp

O Clavis David: "O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death."

If we indeed see God as having the key to our heart, then doesn't that make God our soulmate? Someone who can come and unlock the prison where we keep our self when it's hurting and lonely? where we hide things we only pull out in the darkness of pain? the judgments and the recriminations and the accusations and the fears?

"A soulmate is someone who has keys to fit our locks and locks which fit our keys. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life." - Richard Bach

Advent 4 2015

check out http://revgalblogpals.org/ it's terrific.

Holy One, Like Mary, make us brave. Make us resourceful. Make us courageous. Like Mary, make us open to You coming here through us. Like Mary, make us full with song and blessings and hope against hope. Like Mary, make us sure of what we we long to believe, that your promises will be fulfilled. Holy One, Like Elizabeth, give us wisdom. Give us endurance. Give us leaping joy within. Like Elizabeth, give us sure confidence in recognizing the God bearers among us, and like Elizabeth, may we offer strong blessings to those God-bearers. We pause in these next moments, to ponder how you are calling each of us to bear You in our lives. We pause in these next moments, to offer our prayers for this world so in need of You. Holy One, As you have with our sisters and brothers in faith throughout the ages, inspire us to bless and be a blessing, to midwife and to bring forth your mercy and your Light in to this world. In the name of all that is holy, Amen. - revkarla

the Octave of Christmas 2015 December 18: O Adonai: HaShem

textile artist Linda Witte Henke http://bit.ly/1kbhzLp

“O Adonai: O sacred Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.”

Isaiah had prophesied, “But God shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. God shall strike the ruthless with the rod of God's mouth, and with the breath of God's lips God shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around God's waist, and faithfulness a belt upon God's hips.” (11:4-5); and “Indeed the Lord will be there with us, majestic; yes the Lord our judge, the Lord our lawgiver, the Lord our king, God will save us.” (33:22). 

With this second antiphon we progress from creation to the familiar story of God manifesting God's self by name to Moses and giving the law to Israel as their way of life. We are also reminded of the Israelites' deliverance from bondage under pharaoh - a foreshadowing of our own redemption from death. The image of God's arm outstretched in power to save God's chosen people also brings to mind the later scene of Jesus with his arms outstretched for us on the cross.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in God so that you may overflow by the power of God's Holy Spirit.

Advent 3 2015 05 Friday

<There's an African American song, 19th Century, which is so great. It says, "When it look like the sun wann't gonna shine anymore God put a rainbow in the clouds". Imagine ! and I've had so many rainbows in my clouds. I've had a lot of clouds! but I have had so many rainbows. And one of the things, when I go anywhere, I bring every one who has ever been kind to me with me. I say, come with me, I need you now. Long dead ... you see? so I don't ever feel I have no help. I've had rainbows in my clouds. and the thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. may not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all, you see? and may not eat the same dishes prepared the way you do. may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think. - Maya Angelou>

Advent 3 2015 04 Thursday

<Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of one's goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek. - Mario Andretti>

Advent 3 2015 03 Wednesday

  

<I invite each of us to expect more of ourselves. Yet as I think about happiness, I keep running up against paradoxes: I want to change myself but I need to accept myself. I want to take myself less seriously, but also more seriously. I want to use my time well, but I really want to wander, to play, to read at whim. I want to think about myself so that I can forget myself. Because I am always on the edge of agitation, I want to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.>
― Gretchen Rubin.

 As Voltaire quoted an Italian aphorism,

"Don't let perfection be the enemy of good." 

Advent 3 2015 01 Monday

<Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form. To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don't try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself. ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Art of Power>

Advent 2 2015 05 Friday

<We must speak to God as a friend speaks to a friend, communicating all that concerns us, our schedule, our passions, our thoughts, our fears, our projects, our desires, and in all things recognizing God's engagement, and seeking God's counsel.> <For me, prayer means launching out of the heart toward God; a cry of grateful love from the crest of joy or a cry for help from the trough of despair; Prayer is a vast supernatural force that opens out my heart, and binds me close to God.> - St. Ignatius of Loyola, sort of / Saint Damasus

Advent 2 2015 04 Thursday

Trappist Father Thomas Merton pictured in an undated photo.
CNS photo/Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University)

<Love and gratitude are special ways of being alive. Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train. There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world. Remember: Today will never come again. - Thomas Merton>

Advent 2 2015 03 Wednesday

<I hold it true that thoughts are things endowed with bodies, breath, and wings, and that we send them forth to fill the world with good results - or ill. That which we call our secret thought speeds to the earth's remotest spot, and leaves its blessings or its woes like tracks behind it as it goes. It is God's law. Remember it in your still chamber as you sit with thoughts you would not dare have known, and yet made comrades when alone. These thoughts have life; and they will fly and leave their impress by-and-by like some marsh breeze, whose poisoned breath breathes into homes its fevered breath. And after you have quite forgot, or all outgrown some vanished thought, back to your mind to make its home, a dove or raven, it will come. Then let your secret thoughts be fair; they have a vital part ,and share in shaping worlds and moulding fate -- God's system is so intricate. ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox>

Advent 2 2015 02 Tuesday

photo source: http://bit.ly/1NDbx1T

<Let me to-day do something that shall take a little sadness from the world’s vast store, and may I be so favoured as to make of joy’s too scanty sum a little more. Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend; nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, or sin by silence when I should defend. However meagre be my worldly wealth, let me give something that shall aid a soul – a word of courage, or a thought of health, dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find. Let the Universe to-night look back across the span ‘twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say, because of some good act to beast or person – “The world is better that you lived today.” ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox >

Advent 2 2015 01 Monday

Art by http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/

I haven't thought about this in years. When I go to meditate or say a rosary, I go in with that intention, so it's in the front of my mind, I'm not going in with a blank slate, I'm going in with an intention. Many of us wake up these days in Total Darkness, not to a sunrise. This meditation from (sort of) Chaya Kaplan-Lester asks us to begin with NO intent, to sit in nothingness and embrace it to find G-d in the darkness and come out the other side together. There's some work!

<Sit quietly for a moment in complete darkness, and let the darkness indeed be complete, with no want for anything, no need for the distractions of sight; simply sense the quiet stillness and complete acceptance of G-d who sits everywhere patiently waiting for us to take notice. Turn off all vision, be quiet and sense the sanctuary that is G-d in our on being. Existing in the cellar of self, like an unlit candle in the darkness, discover a deeper self than light can let in. Dedicate yourself to this inner darkness, to the unknown, to the unspeakable seclusions of the soul. It is the darkness that provokes our path to further reaches, our thoughts to further depths. It is the as-of-yet unillumined, unanswered aspects of an unraveling self, the landscape of dreams and nightmares, tragic truths and fears. Dedicate this moment to every question quested after, to every confusion that has humbled us, to every challenge mastered, to the thrill of secrecy. Reach out to the pilot light of G-d's continued presence in our soul and let it catch on the wick of our Spirit. As the candle of our soul comes alive with the light of G-d, notice that it casts a shadow, our very self in dark outline, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with G-d. Integrate and dedicate the darkness with the light, that which illumines a deeper understanding, and know that you are illuminated from within by the very source of all light.>

Advent 2 2015

<The lack of a belief in magic and miracles and spiritual mystery in our modern life is a downfall and a poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for these mysteries. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor these mysteries. Look how children have open, wide-awake eyes. They know that they are surrounded by mystery. They are not yet bitter or world-weary; they still dream. We destroy the mystery because we sense that we have reach the boundary of dreaming….Living without mystery means a life with no Wonder, no gasp when confronted with daily miracles, unable to see the beauty in the world all around us. It means living with our heads down, our ears covered, immersed in our own preprogrammed soundtracks, not listening for the sudden giggle of a child or a bird's song, unavailable to notice the glorious golden light of Autumn splashed across our path, taking our journey for granted and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying that they exist and can bring life and joy and rejuvenation. ― sort of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sort of

Advent 1 2015 05 Friday

 Guardian Angel, 1998, Laura James

<We need to stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around us and remember that the lives of others are not our business. They are their business. They are God’s business. Even our own life is not our business. It also is God’s business. We need to go to God in prayer and leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought. If we unclench the fists of our spirit, we can take it easy and have open empty hands to accept all the fresh gifts God has to offer us. What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, possibly, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of doubt, self-recrimination, judgement, worry. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort than being able from time to time to stop that chatter…> <…When we move to be alone in prayer and meditation and have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distractions manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important. At issue here is the question: "To whom do I belong? God or to the world?"> <The answer comes through the grace of God, freely given to all, which means something like: you were specifically born because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.> ― sort of Frederick Buechner / Henri J.M. Nouwen / Laura Parsons, sort of

Advent 1 2015 04 Thursday

it is SUCH a THURSday, right? such an inbetween! i can see the weekend, but can't taste it, and then the general sadness of the madnesses about and then some of our personal sadnesses of loved ones passing. I keep thinking of my girlfriend Elizabeth's Grandmother who makes this special cake with me every Lent. There's a point where

<...after every ingredient had been added and stirred, and before she poured the batter into the muffin tins or cake pans, she would gather us round the Very Large Mixing Bowl and then, she would tell us not to worry. That Lent was a very sad time, but that soon, it would be Easter. Jesus would play a wonderful trick on Satan, and death would not kill him. And, because death could no longer kill Jesus, death could no longer kill us. Because of Jesus, we would know eternal life in heaven where we would all someday be, once again. She would tell us this and then say, "So, laugh, children. Laugh into the bowl. Laugh into the cake. Laugh at the Devil. He can't win. He can't ever win! Only Jesus can win. Only Jesus! Laugh! Laugh! Laugh!" And, we would. Laugh. Loud. Right into the bowl. I swear people ten blocks away could hear us laugh. It was the best part of making - and eating - that cake...>

 and I think that's what's gonna get me through today.
(Elizabeth's blog here: http://telling-secrets.blogspot.com/)