Christmas 2084 - a satirical Christmas Story

“Merry Christmas, Everyone!” I called out to the room full of my co-workers. It was December 23^rd and my first Christmas in Canada for 5 years. We wouldn’t see each other now until after Christmas.

My words were met by silence, interspersed with  few gasps. Three people took out cell phones. My friend, who was trying to shut me up whispered, “They are dialling 911.” Some other friends were trying to hustle me from the room: “Hurry, get out before the police arrive – let’s go, let’s go!”

I shook off their hands. “What do you mean, police? What’s going on? Why call the police?”

There was a circle of friends around me, and a phalanx of hostile faces between me and the door. I was confused. In the eight months since I’d been back in Canada, nothing had prepared me for this.

Someone asked, “Why did you say that?”

“Say what?” I asked.

“You know, the MC phrase, the politically incorrect words.”

“MC? MC?” Then the penny dropped. “Oh you mean Merry ....”

“Shh!” someone hissed. “Don’t say it. Let’s just get out of here. Maybe the police will let you off if you explain you’ve been away and didn’t know.”

I had returned home earlier in the year, after spending five years in the Middle East. Living in an international community there, we’d celebrated many religious holidays together: Eid with our Moslem friends; Hannakuk with our Jewish neighbours; Diwali, the festival of lights, with a delightful Hindu family we had met through a common love of architecture; and they would all come to eat Turkey and drink egg nog (with or without alcohol)  with us at Christmas.

It seems that, while I was away, political correctness had flourished here at home. It was like George Orwell’s “1984”. We cannot offend those who have other beliefs, or no belief. It had become a crime to wish anyone a Merry Christmas in public.

So here I stood, in my office, surrounded by my co-workers, waiting for the police to come and arrest me for saying “Merry Christmas” instead of the politically correct “Happy Holidays”. My friends were still trying to get me to leave, when the sound of sirens came from the street outside.

“I stay,” I said, refusing to be bullied by this ridiculous law.

I left, in handcuffs, was charged and, after a night in jail, found guilty, fined and let out.

Christmas Day found me reflecting on the birth of Jesus as I flew over the Atlantic. I was on my way back to the Middle East. As I stepped out of the airport, a Moslem friend met me: “Welcome back,” he said. “and Merry Christmas.”

Points to Ponder

What does it mean when we wish someone a Merry Christmas? My dictionary says : “full of or showing lively cheerfulness or enjoyment” or “tending to produce cheerfulness or happiness in people”. Is this what we really want to wish our friends and associates at Christmas? hat would, for you be a more appropriate greeting?

A Christmas Blessing

May you have the gladness of Christmas which is hope; the spirit of Christmas which is peace; and the heart of Christmas which is love.  And may the love of the Christ Child ever fill your hearts and homes with gladness; In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Cocooned

Cocooned in cold:

comfortless, companionless,
wintered in whiteness
frozen and alone.
I rest in a blanket of soft snow

The part of me outside the snowy grave
looks down in the light of the Son.
Pitying, praying.
Caressing away the gentle snow.

Revealing a cold, frozen mass

a mess  of mouldering, maggot filled emotions
frozen in a frigid, friendless grave.

I stare, helpless. But I am not alone.

The shining Son, warmth in whiteness, purity, melts the ice surrounding my heart.

Slowly, together we explore and expel each maggot, replace putrefaction with purity.

I stare, awed. Still I am not alone.

The part of me outside the grave

is now all of me, whole, unified,
rejoicing in the warmth of the Son.

Cocooned in compassion:

comfort-filled, companioned
Warmed in whiteness
Never alone.
I rest in a blanket of living love.

Note:  In dream interpretation, water represents emotion, and frozen water, snow or ice, represents a detatched or impassive state of frozen emotions.

Points to Ponder:
Have you been in the wilderness of frozen emotions, unable to feel anything, afraid to let yourself feel, afraid of beng hurt again?
What brought you to this state, and what helped you come out of this state, to be reborn as a new person?
What part of you had changed and grown as a result of this experience?

Prayer:

God of Love, when I am trapped in cold, comfortless and companionless, frozen and alone, send your warmth to melt the ice in my heart, so that I can again feel love and show compassion for others.
Amen

God’s Word

The Word of God

spoke the universe into being
not too loud, not too quiet
just what was needed
to create matter.

Spirit, outside time, watched
as stars and planets formed.
You chose an insignificant place,
you breathed and there was life.

Nurturing life,
rejoicing in diversity,
mothering to maturity,
you guided it to ripeness,
                                abundance,
                                fullness

With the arrival of humankind
came sentience,
             consciousness,
             wisdom,
             morality,
             free will.

Your love was so great,
you wanted love in return.
Only free choice can love.

Freewill brought brokenness,
                                  pain and joy,
                                  hate and love.
Brokenness brought Jesus
The Word that spoke creation,
The Word made Flesh.

Spirit who breathes life,
breathe new life into me
that I may hear the Word,
turn,
be healed of brokenness,
become one again with creator and cosmos
able to love
as you love me.
                                 Jan Savory, August 2009, Niagara Falls

Points to Ponder:

God isked rejection to get our love when he gave us free will. When have you risked rejuction for a greater reward?

 How can this story of creation be seen in your own life and experience? In what way are you a co-creator with God?

Prayer:

Holy one, as we live in your love, as we share in your creative work, may we never forget that you made us, healed us and are ever with us.
Amen

Living in the Mystery of Faith: Part 1 – A Spiritual Crisis

I suffered a crisis of faith when my husband died. That is, on top of the trauma of losing a loved one, a part of myself.

What did I believe? Did I believe? Other people seemed so certain ...

Our Daughter had been staying with us before and after the death. Some years ago, she had been called to the Pentecostal  Church, believed the Bible literally and talked to God all the time – sometimes in that incomprehensible way known as Speaking in Tongues. She was so secure in her black and white faith.

 A close friend, a long time seeker, had been “born again” a couple of years earlier, and delighted in spending three to four hours every morning in prayer and Bible Study.  There was no room for discussion or doubt. "The Bible says it.  I believe it.  That settles it." 

I joined a Bible Study group consisting of my neighbours, and soon realized (like in the first 5 minutes) that they all had this undoubting black and white faith, ad with it a strong sense that God was with them and would protect them: as the Poet said “God’s in His heaven, All’s right with the World.”

But that didn’t make any sense to me.  I couldn’t believe as they did, I didn’t feel the presence of God as they did. All was not right with the world.

Prayer, reading the Bible, reading devotional books, worship in Church all seemed sterile. No feeling – numbness. Yes, I believed in a supreme being, but was he the wise old Grandfather up in Heaven of my Conservative Christian friends?  Was he a clockmaker God, who made and wound up the Universe and just let it run on its own? Where was the immanent God I used to believe in and pray to? Where was the Ground of my Being, to use Paul Tillich’s words? And where was Jesus?

Searching, I went on a retreat, where I told a wise Priest about my unbelief. At the end of the session, I started to cry, and through my tears, blurted out: “I don’t even know if I am a Christian anymore!”

Of all the probable responses, I would never have expected the one  got. “We have a course starting in the fall to train Spiritual Directors. Why don’t you enrol?” Rendered speechless, I let him pray for me and left.

So began a journey – or maybe the journey just continued. Who can say where we start? I researched the course, talked, very frankly with a spiritual director who had taken the course, discussed it with my own priest, prayed about it, and decided to enrol in the 2 year course. After all, what did I have to lose, apart from some time and money  worth it if I found my faith again.

All this time, I felt as if there was a wall between me and the rest of Humanity. In my grief and pain, I could not feel the joys or sorrows of others. I remember sitting on a hotel room balcony in Florida, reading alone because I didn’t want to join the crowd around the pool, feeling as if there was a glass panel between me and the rest of the world. Well, a glass panel was better than a brick wall.

The course taught me so much about faith. There was no blinding light, but I was with other people who were committed Christians, but didn’t need to see everything in black and white. It was OK to have shades of grey. I learned (or maybe relearned in some cases) that there are many ways to relate to God, many ways to pray, many paths leading to the Divine presence. But still I was in a glass bubble – yes the glass pane surrounded me and became my bubble.

The breakthrough came one day  quite unexpectedly. No, the glass did not break, But I had a vision. the glass bubble that surrounded me was not a sphere, but an egg a thin glass shell. God was telling me that out of this harsh and dark experience, I would be reborn.

It would make a good ending to this tale if I could point to the moment when the egg shell broke and a new me emerged, but it didn’t happen like that.

Slowly, things changed, I evolved. The egg vision was a turning point, but I was still journeying – I am still journeying. Life is a journey.

I now longer see myself constrained in a bubble or Glass egg.  I no longer try to understand God or have a single image of the Divine. it is enough to experience the transformation the risen Christ has made and continues to make in my life. The journey continues.

 The way I see God and myself will continue to change as I journey, but now I know that God travels with me,  that whatever happen. God loves me more than I could ever  dream of. I don’t need answers. I have learned to love living with questions, remembering that God is too vast for human understanding. A God I could understand would somehow be less than I am, and I don’t want that God.

The God I cannot understand holds me close – what more could I ask for?

Points to Ponder:

What have been the turning points in your faith journey? Can you see how God is working in you and with you?

How does the way you picture God impact the way you live?

Prayer

Loving God, Mystery of Life, Give me the vision to see how you are working in my life, and the courage to walk with you along this path.

I acknowledge one baptism...

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be baptized by total immersion. I’d been christened as a baby – sprinkled with Water, but what did I remember of that ... Nothing! What did it mean to me if I could not remember it ... Nothing!

A wise Minister, whom I fully respected, told me it was not necessary. I had been baptised, and rebaptism would be meaningless. But I wanted the emotional high I thought would come from total immersion. Remember, I was a teen, and emotion was all important. Without the feeling of being in love, whether with Christ or the latest boyfriend, how could I know love was real?

It took me many years to understand why rebaptism was unnecessary. Baptism is not a once for all time occurrence; it is an ongoing experience. The symbolic sprinkling of water I received as a five week old baby all those years ago was the start of a life immersed in the God, in whom “we live and move and have our being”[1].

Jesus told his Disciples, after his resurrection, to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” [2] , immersing them in the life of the holy Trinity.

Unfortunately, many baptised persons never realize the joy of this life in Christ. Whether sprinkled with water or immersed in it, they are sprinkled with Christianity. Another baptism will not change this. What is needed is to grasp the reality of the life in Christ that was offered in Baptism, and live as Christ taught. 

Points to Ponder:

What does my Baptism mean to me? Am I immersed in Faith or sprinkled with religion?

What can I do to immerse myself in the life of Christ?

Prayer

Holy One, Creator, redeemer and Comforter, Surround me with Your love, that I may be immersed in eternal life, Amen

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[1]               Acts 17.28

[2]               Matthew 28.19

God’s Love

I was surrounded by love. At three years old, it seemed to me that everyone I came into contact with loved me – parents, grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbours. And as far as I could tell, they all loved each other, too. It was in this environment that I learned that God loved me, Jesus loved me. There was unconditional love all around me.

As I grew older, I realized all was not as rosy, as loving as my infant heart had believed. Some of what looked like love between people around me covered indifference or even dislike in a socially acceptable form. I even learned the first hard lesson that not everyone loved me – or even liked me.

But if the love of people around me was changeable, depending on moods, actions or perceptions, Love couldn’t be unconditional.

It took me many more years, into adulthood, to appreciate the hymn I learned in Sunday School and to know, in both mind and heart, that unconditional love really does exist. God’s love is unconditional.

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

It wasn’t enough for the Bible (or the Hymn book) to tell me this. I had to experience God’s grace before I could accept his unconditional love. Then I understood, in my heart what the Bible was telling me:

God ... has blessed us with every spiritual blessing of heaven in Christ. Even before the world was made, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault. [1]

Thank God! He deserves your thanks. His love never quits. Thank the God of all gods, His love never quits. Thank the Lord of all lords. His love never quits.[2]

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.[3]

What a difference that made in my life!

I don’t have to be loveable, or even likeable, for God’s love to overflow into me.

I don’t have to do anything to be God’s beloved.

God loves me nbecause it is God’s nature, not because of what I am.

God pours out grace to each one of us, accepting us as we are, not as we think we are, or want to be, or think we should be. As we are! As the Creator God made us! God offers us pardon and life in the Divine Spirit.

All we have to do is to let God into our lives. St Paul says that nothing in all creation can separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus”[4]. Nothing, not even ourselves.  Try it!

Points to Ponder:

What difference does it make in your life to know that you are God’s beloved?

Does it mean you can accept yourself as you are, or does it make you want to grow in faith to please your Divine lover?

Prayer

Loving God, I thank you that I am your beloved child, loved unconditionally, imperfect as I am.  Amen

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[1]               Ephesians 1.3-4

[2]               Psalm 136 (The Message)

[3]               1 John 4.9

[4]               Romans 8