We spent a lot of time, energy and money trying to find the perfect gift for family and friends. As I get older, when I’m asked what I’d like for Christmas, I find myself saying, “I really don’t need anything!” On a recent visit with my son and his family, I heard them tell their eight-year old daughter she should ask for four things: “something she wants, something she needs, something to wear and something to read.” That’s pretty clever guidance for our children in their asking, and for us in our giving!
Thinking along these lines, I found myself recalling the words of a favorite poem by Presbyterian Poet Laureate Ann Weems, from her book Kneeling in Bethlehem, and remembering this poem dear to my heart:
“What Do I Want for Christmas?”
What do I want for Christmas?
want to kneel in Bethlehem,
the air thick with alleluias,
the angels singing
that God is born among us.
In the light of the star,
I want to see them come,
the wise ones and the humble.
I want to see them come
bearing whatever they treasure
to lay at the feet
of him who gives his life.
What do I want for Christmas?
To see in that stable
the whole world kneeling in thanks
for a promise kept:
new life.
For in his nativity
we find ours.
Words of poets like Ann Weems, deepen our understanding of Christmas and the gifts it brings to our individual lives and to all of life. What do we want for Christmas? What do we need to receive to experience those tidings of great joy as never before? In what ways do we need to experience Emmanuel – God with us – right where we are?
Elizabeth
“Everything Is Beautiful" is a song written, composed, and performed by Ray Stevens in the summer of 1970. I had just graduated college and was out to change the world, and this was to be the song of my heart for years to come:
Everything is beautiful in its own way
Like a starry summer night or a snow covered winter's day
Everybody's beautiful in their own way
Under God's heaven, the world's gonna find a way.
There is none so blind as he who will not see
We must not close our minds, we must let our thoughts be free
For every hour that passes by, you know the world gets a little bit older
It's time to realize that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder
Everything is beautiful in its own way
Like a starry summer night or a snow covered winter's day
Ah, sing it children
Everybody's beautiful in their own way……
We live with billions of other people on this earth, and we have so much to learn and so much love and understanding to share with one another. This is what our world needs! We should embrace and celebrate how special and different we are. Being judgmental and not appreciating just how vital diversity is in our lives should be a thing of the past. The human race is extraordinarily diverse in so many ways: gender, ethnicity, race, class religion, nationality, sexuality, philosophy, lifestyle. Now is the time to embrace this diversity.
The history of intolerance is a long and brutal one where people who don’t fit a criteria and set of expectations are not accepted in our society. The list of major tragedies in our history that were caused solely by this way of thinking include slavery, the Holocaust, The Crusades, the genocide of the American Indian, and the list could go on and on. So many people have died or been deprived of basic rights because of a lack of understanding – an understanding that difference in appearance, belief, or way of life does not make one person better than another.
I came across this fresh new way of looking at diversity:
Different
Individuals
Valuing
Each other
Regardless of
Skin
Intellect
Talents or
Years
And poet, Maya Angelou reminds us, “In diversity, there is beauty and there is strength.”
Fifty year later, “Everything is Beautiful” is still the song of my heart – if only there were more folks to join in singing it. Ever grateful for those streams of mercy, never ceasing.
Elizabeth
As a new church year begins, on the First Sunday of Advent, we speak of the end times or last days; when the days are shortest and the nights darkest, the church proclaims it to be the season of light. In the most hectic weeks of the year, when we face more activity, more expense and more pressure than ever, the church announces “peace on earth,” and as full and busy as this season is, we become aware of our emptiness, for we see our brokenness, and we long for the wholeness we can know in this one whose coming we await.
Each Advent, we remember and retell the story of people, who like us, were waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled. In all the busy comings and goings of these next few weeks, we will be remembering how Jesus came among us long ago as a baby in Bethlehem, and how in God’s good time , he will come again to bring everything to fulfillment.
During special seasons of the church year, I try to make time for extra season-related studies. This year I’m reading a book of meditations for Advent and Christmas: A Child is Born. The reading for Day One comes from Isaiah 9, focusing on verse 6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…”
This Advent promise is intentionally “communal.” The child is born to “us” for “our” salvation, not to and for me or mine. “The promise addresses us as a family, a people, kindred, a commonwealth of peoples,” and in so doing teaches us once again that if we would know the blessing of this promise, we must embrace it in all its fullness. Even the nature of the gift, a child, defines the promise this “communal” way, for a child draws out our gifts of nurturing, cooperating and living in community. “It takes a village to raise a child,” we’ve heard many times! As we move through these weeks toward the manger, may we look around at those who journey with us and recognize the Advent promise is for “us.”
“Christ is coming! Christ is coming to make all things new!
Within us, without us, among us, before us;
In this place, in every place; for this time, for all time;
Christ is coming! Christ is coming to make all things new!”
In the hope of that promise, let every heart prepare him room!
(Wild Goose Worship Resources for Advent)
Elizabeth