As I took my walk this morning, I was thinking about Mary.  I was actually wishing she were walking and talking with me in the cold air on this December day.  I have so much on my mind and heart, and she understands these things.  I would have enjoyed talking with Mary as the elder, the sage… the one who gave birth to Jesus and years later, buried him as well.  Now there’s a Christmas story for our times because chances are… Mary was
filled with complex feelings and thoughts as she gave birth to the Son of God that cold and lonely night.  Was
there joy? Yes.  Was fear present, and worry and uncertainty?  Of course!  Did she laugh and cry?  Yes, because this is life and she honored that truth in the deepest parts of her heart. Mary gave us her Son in so many ways and in doing so… she gave us permission to be real, to be honest and open and true to where we stand as who we are.  I’ll bet Mary had mud (or worse!) on her sandals when Jesus was born.
 
We think we have to do Christmas perfectly… decorations, presents, events, happiness, sparkling lights and spirits.  We think we have to be merry… that Jesus and everyone else will be disappointed if we aren’t.  But perhaps what is most important at this time of the year is to simply stay close to what is true and hold it with as much compassion as we possibly can.  We tend to love traditions, but maybe they need a rest so we can find our way back to Mary’s heart and to the love Jesus came to bring.  Maybe tears are the most needed gift or sighing or drawing close to our own souls so that we might tend what breaks us and invite a healing of those wounds before they wound others.
 
When Mary and Joseph and the lowly animals gathered in that stable… they just showed up to what was and they did the best they could with those vague, confusing, and holy circumstances.  I want to join them in this coming year.  I want to let go of perfection and find God’s holy face exactly where I never expected to find it… 
  
Let me know if you’d like to come along.

A recent conversation between my daughter and my Dad went like this: 
Hannah:  “Hey, PaPa… What do you want for Christmas?”
Dad:  “January.”
 
This Christmas, let’s give everyone we love and ourselves a break.  Can we just go back to the stable and snuggle up close to those we love and sip tea? Can we tell stories and sing songs and dream dreams with billowed breath beneath the starry skies?  What happens when we show up… without the emphasis being on a wrapped gift, but on the one that says, “I see you.  I hear you. I know you.  I care about you and what you yearn for.”  It seems to me that while we all whine about all the time, effort, patience and money it takes to give everyone Christmas gifts, what requires more of us is to make eye contact, to know the heart of another, to give of Spirit. Could this be why so many get lost in Christmas… so that they can’t possibly be found in it?
 
If you are energized by shopping and wrapping and giving useful and fun gifts… then go for it!  If this is your Christmas cheer…then by all means… be cheerful.  But if your Christmas get up and go has long since past… try it a different way.  
 
Instead of speeding up, slow it down.  Instead of going to malls, go to the heart.  Instead of hundreds of dollars, why not hundreds of wishes or prayers or connections that heal or bring hope?  What is it that anyone needs, truly needs at this time in our world?  I say, we need encouragement!  We need to travel quiet spaces with friends so we learn to hear what is not spoken. We need less stuff and more time in nature.
 
Additionally, if you are sad this Christmas… for Pete’s sake… don’t feel guilty on top of feeling sad.  Maybe your loved one has recently passed.  Maybe you have a job that is a job that pays the bills but doesn’t make the most of your talents.  Maybe you need a job or a place to live or someone to love.  Maybe you are hurting in mind, body, or spirit and the first thing you do each morning is have a big cry.  Maybe you no longer believe in Santa, or the Spirit of Christmas, or anything remotely magical or promising.  Well, guess what?  I believe that if Mary, the Mother of Christ, were to sit beside you, she might say something like this:
“There is so much we do not understand.  There is so much that breaks our hearts.  There are many reasons to grow weary and tired and lost.  But beyond all of that, beyond all of the wounds and confusion… there is a quiet place inside each of us that trusts there is more than what our minds can comprehend.  This place waits for us to
remember.  It waits for us to return.  It waits with love… with a love that is whole.  My child, rest here with me.  I will hold you while you sleep.  And when you awake… may your new journey of blessing begin.”
 
There is a book I have read every advent for about 15 years. It came to me one December when I felt utterly broken, and it served as a balm for my soul.  And every December since that time, I have read it to honor the tender spaces that feel even more tender at this time of the year.  It is entitled NIGHT VISIONS: SEARCHING THE SHADOWS OF ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS.  The author and collage illustrator of this book is Jan L. Richardson.  She writes:
 
“With each of our breakings, you break, and with each of our woundings your own wounds grow deeper.  Yet you hold the pieces together till we learn to make the new connections, and you guard each throbbing wound till we have had enough of pain.  You remind us that it is our delight you seek, not our suffering. 
And you tell us it is not the wounds that give us life, but the tending of them in each other.  And you say
it is not the breaking that makes us whole but the mending of the pieces that bring us life anew.”

Jan also writes:  “This restless hope is what drives me beyond the weariness, beyond the discomfort, beyond every thought that what I carry within me will never come to birth.  This restless hope beyond all reason flutters beneath my heart and grows within my soul. It is beyond me, and it is of me, and it is delivering me home.”
 
This Christmas, above everything else, I wish you the gift of that first step… that first step toward your quiet place… that first step that leads you… home.  Be well, my friends.  You are loved.