Kwanzaa Celebration

 

Breathe and be in God’s presence today.

Pray for Umoja – unity – the candle lit on Monday.  Commit your heart to God’s threads that connect us to each other and all creation.

Pray for Kujichagulia – self-determination – the candle lit on Tuesday.  Commit your mind to listen to voices too often silenced and your reading schedule to engage voices other than your own.  

Pray for Ujima – collective work – the candle lit on Wednesday.  Open your calendar for 2023 to sign up and show up for events where we can come together to seek the common good.

Today, light a candle for Ujamaa – Cooperative Economics – to build and maintain stores, shops and businesses owned/operated by African-Americans.  Let this candle guide you out into our community to support with your dollars. Then, take yourself out to eat at a restaurant owned and operated by African Americans.  

Here is a link:

https://manasotabcc.org/

Kwanzaa Celebration

 

As we honor Kwanzaa this week, we have lit candles of Umoja (Unity) and Kujichagulia (Self-Determination).  Today, we light the candle of Ujima or Collective work and responsibility.  This is the commitment to build and maintain community together; to make our community’s problems our problems and solve them together.

This is one of the principles behind SURE – Sarasota United for Responsibility and Equity.  Our church is also part of ASALH ~ Association for the Study of African-American Life and History.  Founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson on September 9, 1915; ASALH in our area is one of the largest chapters in the country.  Our church actively supports the Betty J. Johnson Library which is a community resource.  There are countless organizations where you can lend your hands, heads, and hearts in the coming year.  You are invited as you light the candle to commit to sharing in the work with others in creating a just, equitable, and loving world.  

Kwanzaa Celebration

 

This week we are honoring the celebration of Kwanzaa.  Each day lighting a candle to represent a principle we can reflect upon.  Yesterday, the first day, we lit a candle for Umoja, Unity.  Today, we light the candle of Kujichagulia or Self-Determination.  From the National Museum of African American History and Culture website this day honors that to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves. 

Our Sacred Conversations on Race group is committed to reading first-hand narratives of the experiences of African Americans, Indigenous, Asian, and Latino voices because for many of us, we did not hear these voices growing up.  Too often these voices continue to be silenced and sidelined.  We give thanks today that there are so many wonderful resources we can read, podcasts to listen to, films to watch, and conversations to be had.  This week, however, honors African American voices.  You are encouraged today to listen to music, read poems, tune into podcasts or watch movies/television shows that are written by African Americans.  Today you may dive into a writing by Maya Angelou or James Baldwin.  Watch a show written and directed by an African American.  Listen to music such as jazz or performed by African Americans.  Listen to the ways African Americans are defining, naming, creating and speaking with their authentic…made in God’s image…self.

Kwanzaa Celebration

 

This week we honor the celebration of Kwanzaa.  My heartfelt thank you to Ms. Lovette Harper, Priscilla and Jim Crumel, and Lois and David Wilkins for their insights in shaping these reflections. 

 

During the week of Kwanzaa, families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor ancestors, affirm the bonds of community, and to celebrate African and African American culture. Each day a candle is lit to highlight/represent the principle of that day.  The community is invited to reflect on the meaning of the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African diaspora-inspired foods. 

 

Began by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966, there is so much for all of us to open our hearts to learn from this celebration.  We honor our African-American brothers and sisters this week.  We celebrate the blessings bestowed upon our country, community, and especially our church by our African-American brothers and sisters.  We commit to learning and listening from the history, which can be hard, but can open us to a beauty of the mountain top found only after traveling the valley together.  

 

Each day this week you are invited to light a candle and study the principle.  You are invited to have 7 candles.  You may want these to be red, black, and green - traditional colors of Kwanzaa.  On Sunday, January 1^st, at 11 am we will together light the 7^th candle of Kwanzaa in worship. The seven principals of Kwanzaa are a profound and powerful gift to all of us on this last week of the year.  These principals speak to us all.  We will be guided by great African-American voices, honoring the light and legacy and life of people whose wisdom is deep.

 

Today is the first day and you light the candle of Umoja which means Unity.

 

As you light the candle of Unity, who do you find your heart singing in harmony within these days?  Who do you struggle to stay in tune with because you are not on the same sheet of music?  Psalm 23 speaks and sings of God preparing a table in the presence of my enemies.  Do you think you could sit at table with your enemies?  Chef Leah Chase owns Dooky Chase in Louisiana. This restaurant is open to all people to enjoy delicious meals.  Chef Leah believed that, “We can talk to each other and relate to each other when we eat together.” 

 

Who might God be calling you to open your home and heart to dine with this day?

Advent Joy

 

Here is the truth we are preparing our hearts for this Advent: again and again God enters our life in the strangest places.  Again and again God surprise earth with heaven.  Again and again amid hustle and bustle and crisis and worried lives God enters into our hearts looking for a place to reside. 

 

We return to the quote above this Friday – this Eve of Christmas Eve, which I am not sure is a thing, but it could be!  How can we let these words guide us and open us in these hours before God arrives.

 

How is joy finding room to reside in you this week?

When did joy surprise you?

Where did you discover joy within you?

What does joy feel like?  Taste like?  Sound like?

 

Joy found me this week in listening to the Carol of the week with a smile on my face.  Joy found me in the way my kids wrap presents…which is creative to say the least.  Joy found me when laughing with staff and quietly sitting at night.  Joy visited me in meals shared.  Joy tasted like a bowl of soup on a chilly day. 

 

Now is your turn…respond to those questions about how you are tending and turning and embodying love in these days.  How are you both awaken to and sharing love as true in our world today?  May joy find you as we prepare for Christmas Eve tomorrow night ~ services at 4, 7 (which is also livestreamed), and 11 pm.  May these questions move us closer to the place where God enters in anew this Advent. Amen. 

Kwanzaa Celebration

 

This week we have lit candles of umoja (unity); kujichagulia (self-determination); Ujima (collective work); and Ujamaa (cooperative economics).  Today, we light the candle of Nia – purpose.  This candle represents that collective vocation of building and developing African-American communities in order to restore African-American people to their traditional greatness.  From the National Museum of African-American History and Culture website:

“Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lived his life with purpose!  He wanted to see the United States become a place where all people were treated equally no matter want the color of their skin is.  Everyday he worked for what he believed in by talking to people and peacefully protesting things he knew were unfair.  Because of the hard work and important words of Dr. King and many others, we live in a place that is a little more fair for everyone.”  Today, we can commitment our lives to continuing the work of equity through our words. 

Tomorrow, Saturday, December 31, the candle is Kuumba -Creativity.  You are invited to honor the creativity of African-Americans.  We are blessed by people in our congregation who share their creativity in countless ways through music, poetry, painting, weaving, and intellect.  On the last day of 2022, find ways to honor the poetry, prose, painting, and creativity of African-Americans and write notes of gratitude to people in our church who share and shine their lights wonderfully upon us.

Advent 4 ~ Joy

 

Breathe in God’s joy…breathe out the tension and turmoil that too often steals our joy.

Breathe in God’s joy…breathe out the pain that can persist and insist to always have the final say.

Breathe in God’s joy…breathe out all the objections your mind wants to raise about joy.

 

As you settle into the holiness of this moment, hear these powerful and profound words from Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, “Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”

 

Forgotten joy…unremembered peace.  What joy have you forgotten?  Joy of ice cream on a hot day or hot chocolate on a chilly day.  Joy of laughter and connecting with friends.  Joy of music.  Joy of friendship.  Joy of watching creation or breathing with the trees around you.  What peace is unremembered in you?  Peace of being held in a hug when time stops.  Peace of stillness on a starry night.  Peace of holding a hand, even when there are tears in our eyes.  Poet Wendell Berry talks about the peace of Wild Things.  Hold that image for a moment.

 

Peace…of wild things. 

Peace…of things we cannot control and may not comprehend.

Peace…of things that don’t go exactly according to plans.

Peace…of moments that are less-than-perfect…like God surprising us by being born in a barn.

 

Here is the poem by Berry from which that line comes as a prayer for you today:

 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Amen.

Advent 4 ~ Joy

Today, I encourage you to find a version of “Who Would Think that What Was Needed” to listen to.  I posted one above.  

Listen to the Carol three times.

First, listen to the melody.  What is evoked and provoked from the tune in your soul?

Second, listen to the words.  How do the words cause you to ponder God’s wisdom?  How do the words invite reflection on the wisdom we cling to?  

Third, listen for what has awakened you.  How does your shy soul long to respond to this Carol in these December days?

May this prayer practice help you be awake and alert to God’s peace/presence in these days.  Amen.

Advent 4 ~ Joy

 

This week we are leaning in and listening to the wisdom of the Carol, Who Would Think That What Was Needed.  Today, I invite you to read the third stanza slowly and prayerfully.

 

Centuries of skills and science span the past from which we move,

Yet experience questions whether with such progress we improve.

In our search for sense and meaning, lest our hopes and humors fray,

God surprises earth with heaven, coming here on Christmas Day.

 

I believe we live in the space between the second and third line of the verse above.  We wonder whether we are truly making improvements or taking twenty steps backwards!!  We wonder whether there is progress or regress.  It is easy for the scoreboard in our soul to tally and keep track of all the bad news, because that is what we hear constantly.  We have trained ourselves, our Spidey senses, to pick up and hold onto what is wrong rather than the good and right and God’s movement today.  Our hopes and humors have frayed in many ways, especially after the pandemic and ways we feel afraid of each other. 

 

Yet, the hymn reminds us, God isn’t finished yet.  I am reminded of a great quote from C.S. Lewis’ book, Surprised by Joy.  He writes:

 

All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something long ago or further away or still 'about to be'.’

 

Notice how joy is not something we hold, it is something we are held by.  We cannot compel or control joy, we are caught up in the One who is joy at the center of Being.  God is hope, peace, love, and joy.  We are made in God’s image…called to let these qualities be cultivated in our lives.

 

How do we do this, Lewis instructs us,

Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else. That can come later, if it must come at all.

 

In other words, be present to your life…it is the ordinary moments is how God shows up and surprises us each and every day.  Be open and curious around how this can be true for you this day and week.  Amen

Advent 4 ~ Joy

 

There is a wonderful Christmas Carol entitled, Who Would Think That What Was Needed. The title of this points to the powerful truth that God’s ways are NOT our ways.  At the heart of the season is a subversive/beautiful message: God comes as a baby weak and poor to bring all hearts together.  God comes not with glitz or glamour; splashy or flashy; but born in a barn as a baby.  

Wait…re-read that last sentence because if your soul did not think, 

“Wait, what?!?  That is not how the real world works.  God will never trend on social media or grow God’s platform like that!!  God, don’t you understand that money talks and power needs to be sought.”

Or maybe it is you and I who don’t understand fully what God is up to, which is why we re-tell this story of Christmas year after year after year.  Not because the story is brand-new, but because we need to keep hearing what is at the heart of this holy season.   I invite you this morning to read the words of this Carol slowly/prayerfully, letting each syllable settle into your soul.  I encourage you to see which sentence causes your heart to leap and which sentiment causes you to question what is possible or practical.  Watch where you put the emphasis; you may want to softly whisper the words and then bravely, boldly declare them emphatically for your neighbors to hear.

Who would think that what was needed to transform and save the earth

Might not be a plan or army proud in purpose, proved in worth?

Who would think, despite derision, that a child should lead the way?

God surprises earth with heaven, coming here on Christmas Day.

 

Shepherds watch and sages wonder, monarchs scorn and angels sing;

Such a place as none would reckon, hosts a holy helpless thing;

Stabled beasts and passing strangers watch a baby laid in hay.

God surprises earth with heaven, coming here on Christmas Day.

 

Centuries of skills and science span the past from which we move,

Yet experience questions whether with such progress we improve.

In our search for sense and meaning, lest our hopes and humors fray,

God surprises earth with heaven, coming here on Christmas Day.

 

I love the first line of the second stanza…shepherds watch and sages wonder ~ monarchs scorn and angels sing; such a place (a barn!!) as none would reckon (there is a great word!!) hosts a holy helpless thing (okay…would rather not refer to Jesus as a “thing” but rhyming isn’t easy!).  The point is that we need to pay attention to our moments of watching…wondering… scorning (especially on social media or the cycle of cynicism) and singing.  Each of these verbs are prayer postures.  Some open us (singing and wondering)…others close us off from the holy (like scorning).  Pay attention to what surprises you each day this week, there will be moments that swirl the skeptic in you, but there are also surprises that bring a smile to your face and joy to your heart ~ pay attention, note and notice these.  Try to watch, wonder, and sing your way to joy in these days before Christmas.  Amen.

Advent 3 ~ Love

 

Here is the truth we are preparing our hearts for this Advent: again and again God enters our life in the strangest places.  Again and again God surprise earth with heaven.  Again and again amid hustle and bustle and crisis and worried lives God enters into our hearts looking for a place to reside. 

 

We return to the quote above on this Friday, to let these words guide us and open us during the season of Advent.

 

How is love finding room to reside in you this week?

When did love surprise you?

Where did you discover love within you?

What does love feel like?  Taste like?  Sound like?

 

Love found me this week in the poem/prayer of Jan Richardson yesterday.  Love found me in a hug…in a laugh…in a tear.  Love found me in a gift of cookies made with butter, sugar, and much affection.  Love found me in moments with family…in singing “Canticle of the Turning”…and in trusting that someone out there is reading these words that might help in some small ways.  Love is who God is, who you and I are crafted in the image of, to be right here and now.

 

Now is your turn…respond to those questions about how you are tending and turning and embodying love in these days.  How are you both awaken to and sharing love as true in our world today?  May these questions move us closer to the place where God enters in anew this Advent. Amen. 

Advent 3 ~ Love

 

Breathe in God’s love…breathe out the flames of frustration with others we often light our lives each day.

Breathe in God’s love…breathe out the constant critic in your mind that like a hamster on a wheel is ruminating on all that is wrong with you…and others…and the world.

Breathe in God’s love…breathe out with a loud sigh that change rarely happens as immediately or instantly as we’d like.

 

Breathe and be in this moment.

 

Now read ALOUD to yourself this poem/prayer by Jan Richardson

 

Blessing That Meets You in Love

It is true that every blessing begins with love,
that whatever else it might say, love is always, precisely the point.

But it should be noted that this blessing has come today especially to tell you:

it is crazy about you. That it has been in love with you forever.
That it has never not wanted to see your face,
to never not go through this world in your company.

This blessing thought it was high time it told you so, just to make sure you know.

If it has been shy in saying this, it has not been for any lack of wanting to.
It’s just that this blessing knows the risk of offering itself in a way that will so alter you—

not because it thinks you could stand some improving,
but because this is simply where loving leads.

This blessing knows how love undoes us, unhinges us, unhides us.

It knows how loving can sometimes feel like dying.

But today this blessing has come to tell you the secret sent right to your door:
that it gives itself only to those willing to come alive;

that it vows itself only to those ready to be born anew.

 

Re-read again…and again…and again…especially when the doubts creep and crawl around your mind…gnashing their terrible teeth of pointing out all the reasons why this poem/prayer can’t possibly be true.  Because, my friends, my beloved, the above words are truer than you can ever know.  You are known…you are beloved…be in this truth today.  Amen.

Advent 3 ~ Love

 

Yesterday I offered you a prayer practice that, for me, embodies and embraces the second stanza of the Carol for this week.  Remember those words from Monday:

 

Though I am small, my God, my all, You work great things in me,
and Your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame, and to those who would for You yearn,
You will show Your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.

 

I hear in these words echo of the ancient Hebrew hymnal, Psalm 8:4, “What are humans that You are mindful of them, mortals that You care for them?”  I don’t believe the Psalmist was playing small or putting on false humility here.  I think this question is essentially, “God, are You sure, really sure, that I can do this?”  That question comes to my heart often around the church, on Sunday mornings, in meetings, parenting, in husbanding (not sure that is really a verb, but I am going for it), and in friending (again, creative English here).  At the heart of life, I am not sure we trust the truth of powerful, vulnerable love.  Or as G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”  We will circle back to this truth in January and February when we study the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells us to love…our enemies…and we think, “Um really?”  I also know that for God to reside in me, my pride or ego needs to get out of the way.  I know for God to be God; I am called to lean in and listen to the Holy here and now. 

 

How might you and I practice love in these dwindling December days?  Can we commit to being love to those we named yesterday?  Can we receive love from family and friends and fellow church members as the gift our heart longs deepest for this season?  Can we offer love, knowing that it may not be accepted or even make a difference to someone?  Are we willing to try…even when things go off the rails and don’t work out, because God can take our fumbles and false starts to weave a beautiful fabric from our flaws?  Can you and I clear room for God to receive a love that will not let us go now for the year to come?  May these questions stir our souls and guide our lives this day.  Amen.

Advent 3 ~ Love

 

We are opening our hearts, souls, and whole lives this week to the One who is love incarnate, love in the flesh.  I wonder, who comes to mind when you think about the word, “love”?

Maybe members of your family?

Maybe friends who have become family?

Maybe people at our church?

To take love from being too Hallmark-y, sweet and sugary idealized version of this word, we need people in our lives to embody love.  God’s love is always longing to reside in us and flow through us to others.  Name aloud the people who have showered you with love in the past.

Name aloud the people who show you love in the present.

Name aloud the people you love deeply and dearly ~ those you pray feel the truth of God’s unconditional and unceasing love when s/he/they are with you.

Name aloud people who are hurting you ask God to enfold and hold today with healing love.

 

One of the truths in found in the words of the Carol, the Canticle of the Turning is that love is fierce and faithful in this hymn.  Love is what God is up to in the world.  I want to embrace and embody this holy love, so here is a prayer practice for you.

 

I want you to make a fist with your right hand.  Imagine you are holding the prayers for justice, for the hungry, hurting, homeless, those pushed to the fringes and fray.  Imagine you are holding in your right hand a power that is even greater than fortune or fame.  Place your fisted hand on your heart.  Now place your left hand gently on top of your fist in the shape of a cup.  Your left hand is God holding you while you are holding all that you long to help fix, repair, reconcile, and renew.  Your left hand is God reminding you that the job of Savior is already taken by a baby born weak and poor ~ not pounding a pulpit demanding or decreeing anything.  Your left hand is God reminding you to work with the Holy hovering rather than get so caught up in your way or the highway.  Hold this prayer posture.  Breathe.  Be.  May the One whose love knocks on the door of our life this morning looking for space to reside all year long find you flinging wide open your heart to welcome God with open arms.  Amen.  Amen.

Advent 3 ~ Love

 

There are countless Carols that mention “Love” in the lyrics.  Some are more popular ~ think here of “Feliz Navidad, prospero año y felicidad.” Which means, “I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, from the bottom of my heart.”  Or what about, “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”  I really wonder what Gina would do on Christmas morning if she received a partridge in a pear tree or ten lords a leaping ~ I mean our house isn’t that big!  Or there is the classic line in Sleigh Ride, “We’re snuggled up together like two birds of a feather would be.” I think we can all agree this is just plain adorable and totally impractical in Florida where it is still almost 80 degrees right now and sleigh rides don’t happen here.  I am sure you can add other lyrics and lines to this list too. 

 

But for me this week, I am thinking of the hymn we sang yesterday, “Canticle of the Turning”.  I invite you this morning to read these words slowly/prayerfully, letting each syllable settle into your soul.  I encourage you to see which sentence causes your heart to leap and which sentiment causes you to question what is possible or practical.  Watch where you put the emphasis; you may want to softly whisper the words and then bravely, boldly declare them emphatically for your neighbors to hear.

 

My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great,
and my spirit sings of the wondrous things that You bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight, and my weakness You did not spurn,
so from east to west shall my name be blest. Could the world be about to turn?

Refrain: My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn.

Though I am small, my God, my all, You work great things in me,
and Your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame, and to those who would for You yearn,
You will show Your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.

From the halls of pow’r to the fortress tow’r, not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for Your justice tears ev’ry tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn;
there are tables spread, ev’ry mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.

Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast:
God’s mercy must deliver us from the conqueror’s crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound,
till the spear and rod can be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.

 

For me, I find I love that opening line, “My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God my heart is great!”  At the heart of Advent is preparing our hearts for God to not only rent space in our life until Christmas Eve, but to permanently reside within us all year long.  Along with this truth, I realize God will rearrange the furniture of my life.  That God’s ways and work in this world will disrupt and interrupt my ways and the world’s ways.  I wonder, where is your soul crying out with a joyful shout this morning?  Where do you long for your world to turn?  How might the One who holds us be felt especially in the moments when the “nations rage from age to age” (how powerful is that line?!)?  I invite you today to go back to our service online, listen to this beautiful Carol from yesterday and sing along as a prayer practice and posture for this week.  You can click on the video above to listen again. 
 Amen.

Advent 2 ~ Peace

 

Here is the truth we are preparing our hearts for this Advent: again and again God enters our life in the strangest places.  Again and again God surprise earth with heaven.  Again and again amid hustle and bustle and crisis and worried lives God enters into our hearts looking for a place to reside. 

 

We return to the quote above on this Friday, to let these words guide us and open us during the season of Advent.

 

How is peace finding room to reside in you this week?

When did peace surprise you?

Where did you discover peace within you?

What does peace feel like?  Taste like?  Sound like?

 

Peace found me this week when looking at Christmas lights.  Peace surprised me this week when I was out for a morning walk with the sun just starting to rise on a new day.  Peace found me as I slowed down to God’s pace rather than the frenzied pace life decrees.  Peace feels like this moment, peace tastes like a marshmallow ~ fluffy/airy/sweet, peace sounds like a bell softly, slowly ringing returning my attention to God’s presence here. 

 

Now is your turn…respond to those questions about how you are tending and turning and embodying peace in these days.  How are you both awaken to and sharing peace as true in our world today?  May these questions move us closer to the place where God enters in anew this Advent. Amen. 

Advent 2 ~ Peace

 

Breathe in God’s peace…breathe out those moments you, like Longfellow, have hung your head.

Breathe in God’s peace…breathe out the heaviness in your heart.

Breathe in God’s peace…breathe out the storminess in your soul.

 

Where do you long for peace right now, honestly?  Name aloud the people with whom you’d want to reconcile, relationships that are strained.  Named aloud the situations that are overflowing with stress and no matter how much you rumination or let that problem roam it will not resolve.  Name aloud the color commentary in your mind that constantly chatters about your bumbles and stumbles.

 

Now breathe and be.

Now listen and hear.

Now remember the truth, “You are my beloved,” says God, “with you I am well pleased.” 

 

Not because you solved world peace; not because you are practically perfect in every way; not because you gift others the right gift.  Be in this moment because God’s love is unconditional and unceasing.  God grants us the gift of peace ~ shalom which is wellbeing from the top of your head to your pinkie toe.  God offers us grace to meet us in the messiness of our lives. 

 

Yes, the world is not exactly right.  This was true in Longfellow’s day, and it is true today.  Reminds me of a great story.  

Martin Luther lived in the 1500s, he was a monk who tried to live the perfect life.  He was an achiever and perfectionist and always tried to make others happy.  

Oh, I see myself in Luther.  

Luther eventually left the Catholic Church (or was kicked out depending on how you look at it) and started preaching and teaching about God’s grace is what saves us not our works.  Luther married.  

And Luther struggled with depression his whole life.  

One day his wife, Katharina von Bora, noticed that Luther was grumbling and mumbling constantly.  

So, the next day, she wore black ~ head to toe ~ a sign she was in mourning.  

Luther said, “Who died?”  

von Bora said, “God.”  

“What!!!” Luther exclaimed exasperated.  “God isn’t dead!”  

“Then,” von Bora replied with a smile, “Quit acting like it.”

 

May this story provoke and evoke both a smile on your face and speak to your soul during this season of Advent.  Amen. 

Advent 3 ~ Peace

 

Today, I encourage you to find a version of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” to listen to.  You can find multiple versions on YouTube ~ there is one posted above.

 

Listen to the Carol three times.

 

First, listen to the words.  What is evoked and provoked on this third day of leaning into the words.

Second, listen to the melody/harmony.  How does the music take you on the journey for initially hearing the sweet bells, to hanging your head at the despair in the world, to the resolve that God is presence.

Third, listen for what is awoken with you.  How does your shy soul long to respond to this Carol in these December days?

 

May this prayer practice help you be awake and alert to God’s peace/presence in these days.  Amen.

Advent 2 ~ Peace

 

This week we are leaning in to listen to the prayerful hymn, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day.”  Do you have a bell somewhere in your house?  I want you to go get it. 

 

Or I am sure there is a ring tone on your cell phone.

 

Or you can find the sound of bells ringing on the internet. 

 

Go ahead…I’ll wait.

 

There is a profound story woven into the Carol, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day.”  It starts with hearing bells.

 

Ring your bell.  Ring it loud.  Now ring the slow and soft.  Now you are thinking about that classic line from It’s a Beautiful Life, “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.” 

 

Notice and name what emotions hearing the bell evokes/provokes.  Maybe it brings a smile or maybe you feel like the Grinch who stole Christmas, “Oh the noise, noise, noise.  There’s one thing I hate…all the noise, noise, noise.” 

 

Longfellow initially says the sound of the bells bring a smile to his face, he feels in his heart peace on earth, good will to all. 

 

And then, Longfellow ~ perhaps remembering and recalling the less-then-perfectness; the grief and sharp shards of life ~ hangs his head.  “Peace, bah humbug.”  Maybe he is even philosophical, “Peace is an illusion, like a mirror can be shattered.”  Peace is fragile and there are those who are bulls in a china shop or throwing baseballs near windows.  Longfellow laments ~ just as you and I are wont to do.  Over one hundred years after Longfellow wrote this, we echo his words.  And you thought social media invented trolling and pointing out all that isn’t right!

 

Ring your bell to think about all that isn’t right in the world.  Maybe ring the bell with intensity for the anger and frustration you feel.  Maybe ring the bell softly and slowly tolling it for those you miss and the hurt that hangs in your heart.

 

Keep ringing your bell.

 

And one of the most powerful lines, “God is not dead, nor doth God sleep.”  God is still at work.  God isn’t finished with you or me, God comes again this Christmas anew and afresh to all.

 

Ring the bell slowly, letting the reverberation ride the sound waves right into your soul.  Then, let peace ~ stillness ~ silence settle into your soul this day and this week.  Amen.