The Last Day of Christmas

It is still Christmas somewhere in the world. In Jerusalem, in the Armenian Quarter to be exact. And every where else the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem holds sway. Armenian (Jerusalem) Christmas is 17 January. Thanks to the confusion generated by the unequal adoption of the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the Orthodox trend to observe Christmas on what the West thinks is Epiphany we have a few more days to bask in the light of the marvel that is the miracle of the Incarnation. Merry Christmas one and all!

A Christmas Prayer

Holy Christ,

As the world commemorates your birth, 

I am pondering some things in my heart.

Holy Child of God,

The mystery of your birth bears witness to the power of God. 

Your Incarnation in the Virgin's womb changed 

life, death, space and time for all time.

This I know. This I believe.

Yet in many ways, the world is still the same.

Most Holy Woman-Born,

You came to us  and come to us in ordinary and extraordinary ways.

I still see you at work in the ordinary and the extraordinary.

Yet I would have much more of the extraordinary.

Holy Son of God and Son of Woman,

Your Incarnation, life-teaching and teaching-life, death and Resurrection

changed life, death, space and time for all time.  

Yet in many ways, the world is still the same.

Holy One of Life and Light,

Help me to see more of your power and presence in the world.

Holy One of Earth and Sky,

Help me to see the world beyond the world.

Help me to see the good that you see.

Help me to see the beauty that you see.

Holy Teacher,

Let me read your word 

in earth and sky, water and winter, hope and hurt.

Holy Shepherd and Shelter,

Let my work be your work. 

As you change the world,

let me be an agent of your change.

Let me see your work in this world.
Holy One of Love Incarnate,
Let me know your love for me at all times,
especially in times of doubt and fear.
Let me see your love in the world, in all the world,
especially in the places that seem most God-forsaken.
Let me be a vessel of your love to myself and to all the world.

Holy One of Old,

May the days between this Christmas and the next

find the light of your life in every dark place,

even in the corners of my heart.

Amen.

Christ Mass: for Christ is born(e) of Mary

Did the woman say,
When she held him for the first time in the
dark dank of a stable,
After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,
"This is my body, this is my blood?"

(Francis Croake Frank, excerpt from Did the Woman Say) 

One child. One miracle. All children are miracles. All of life is miraculous. But this was a different sort of miracle. Different than all the other miracles of birth that day, that night. Yet at the same time, not so different.

A make-shift community in a make-shift shelter. Searching for light and life, for a reason to hope that things will not always be as they are. Even if it takes another thirty years, rooted in the conviction that hings will get better eventually, but not quickly.

Meanwhile others watch and wait, coveting their own power. What is the life of one more Palestinian/Jewish child? If seven pounds of dying flesh on the end of a spear would secure a crown and throne, why not just kill them all?

In life we are in the midst of death, from the smallest to the greatest, with every breath we draw, from our first to our last.

Was there ever a silent night? Was there ever a moment's rest? Quick! Up! To Jerusalem! To the temple. Only eight days to make the journey. (What of the Virgin's aching, bleeding body?) Then on the road again.

The tradition would have us believe that a December Christ-Mass occurred on the heels of Hanukkah. Imagine celebrating the liberation of the temple from the Greeks while the Romans still control it. 

Can this birth have any effect on the legions of Rome? Or their descendants? What of the empires in our days? What of our own empire? What has the Bethlehem Babe to do with us and with our world?

Bah Humbug!

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. I love the festivals of Incarnation: Annunciation (and its overlap with Good Friday, then the long silent gestational unmarked season until) Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. I hate the commercializiation of Christmas.
What, I wonder, would happen if everyone who celebrates Christmas bought their gifts after Christmas to give on Epiphany, emulating the traveling sages?
I love blue and purple and white and gold. I don't like red and green (together; OK I like red).
I love Christmas carols and hate Christ-less holiday seasonal music/muzak.
I hate seeing Christmas decorations the day after Halloween - I love the Feast of All Saints and miss the Feast of All Souls.
And I dislike the syncretization of Christmas with Yuletide.

I love Christ-Mass and Advent wreaths and candles and angels and children's choirs and congregational singing. I love the themes of light and hope and peace and joy and the penitential themes: repentance and restoration and fear and death.

Come, holy child, come.
Transform our world, our hearts, our churches into Your Church.
Amen.