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Godspacelight
by dbarta
Christmas

Anticipation and Reality: a Christmas Reversal

by Hilary Horn
written by Hilary Horn

By Jeannie Kendall —

Anticipation is a curious thing: and perhaps especially at Christmas. As a child, my favourite part of Christmas was Christmas Eve. I loved the colours of the presents under the tree, and the mystery of which were for who and what they might contain within. If I am ruthlessly honest about those far off days though, often the expectation outshone the reality and I enjoyed the thought of what might be rather than what actually was. My parents made us open presents one at a time each day, eking them out until well past New Year. I never minded, because it lengthened that season of hope of what I might discover hiding under the gaudy exterior.

Sometimes life is like that, with the anticipation superior to the actuality. The holiday which we eagerly await but weather or venue disappoint us. The job we hoped would stretch and develop us which turns out to be monotonously mundane. The friendship for which we hoped more but proved ultimately superficial.

There are many different ways we can respond. We can stop hoping, allowing spider threads of disillusionment to wrap themselves around our soul. Or we can continue to yearn for that moment which will surprise us by finally meeting our unspoken dreams, becoming weary by the waiting. As the Bible puts it, “Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick” (Proverbs 13:12 The Message)

Christmas, it seems to me, is the opposite. At the time of Jesus’ birth, after a 400 year silence from God, surely anticipation had either ceased altogether or become a distant promise retained only by the pious few. And those who hung on had only nationalistic expectations: a warrior Messiah who would crush the Roman oppressors and release the browbeaten Israelites.

Yet the actuality was so much greater. A rescuer not just for the Jews and that limited time, but for every nation and all history and bringing ultimate transformation for the cosmos. Love personified, humanity dignified and restored.

So as Christmas Eve melts into Christmas day, whatever the day itself holds, know that, to quote the next half of that verse from Proverbs, “when desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.”. An apt phrase, as, decades later, that tree of death would give us access to full, technicolour life.

For once, as we remember again the Word becoming flesh, the reality far exceeds every expectation.

December 23, 2017 0 comments
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Advent 2017ChristmasPoems

Ready or Not, Here I Come

by Hilary Horn
written by Hilary Horn

By Jenneth Graser —

An excerpt from her devotional, Catching the Light

Read Isaiah 42:14, John 3:6, Romans 8:24-25

At certain times in our life, we become aware of the fact that God is preparing to release us into a new season.  It feels as though we have come to the moment of birth.  God placed a seed of this season in us a while ago; it has been growing for quite some time and now we feel he is about to bring it forth.  We can imagine how Mary must have felt, keeping what she was told inside her heart, believing what was promised.  The experience she had of meeting Elizabeth when they were both pregnant, released a burst of prophetic praise out of her that revealed the great anticipation she must have felt housing the King of kings in her womb.  The preparation for these new seasons is like incubating the life of Jesus in us for a whole new expression and time of his coming in our lives.  We become the place of growth as we wait in anticipation for all the good things he has prepared in advance for us.  “That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother.  We are enlarged in the waiting.  We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us.  But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” (Romans 8:24-25 The Message).  It is during these times that we hold onto the life-giving words of Jesus.  As we meditate on his promises and inheritance, we become enlarged in the waiting and become more and more ready for the time of “birth”.  And when we find ourselves launched out into new things, we continue to rely completely on him and contemplate the wonders of what he has done in our hearts.  “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19).

Thank you Lord, that I am enlarged through the times of waiting for your purposes to be born through me.  I will treasure the dreams and visions you give as a sign of what is to come and ponder them with you.  I know when the time comes for this season to be born, that nothing can hold it back!

Ready or not, here I come

On the updraft of a dream

Joel paints the picture for you

Visions, all for men and women

Young and old, and it’s coming.

I crescendo off the embankment

Of birth readiness

A waterslide rush headlong

Into new things, new times

New seasons, everything new.

I am the woman of birth readiness

I hold the dreams of my internal child.

Surely “Christ in me” takes on a whole

New meaning; ready or not

Here I come.

I imagine the Christ child living in me

Christ the Man, the Resurrected King

All as much part of me

As I am of him.

I hold up my hands like wings,

Heaven’s basin is my resting place.

All of my prayers resonate with the sound

Of voices, forming incense, now rising

To the ears, voice, nose of the one who loves me so.

December 23, 2017 0 comments
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ChristmasfreerangefridayHolidays

Freerange Friday: Receive the Gift

by Lilly Lewin
written by Lilly Lewin

By Lilly Lewin

 

Last week we hosted a Sacred Space prayer experience in our home called “RECEIVE THE GIFT.” All the prayer stations were about the gifts we give and receive at Christmas.

I find I am really good at giving gifts, but I am not always great at receiving them.

Too often I want to make excuses that I don’t really need a gift, or that I already have enough, or others need things more than I do. Often I am not even aware of the gifts I need. Often I am too busy or too tired or I’m just not paying attention so I don’t actually see the gifts that God has for me.

Author CS Lewis says,” if our hands are full of too many packages, we cannot receive any new gifts.”

What Gifts do you need this Christmas?

What Gifts do you need to Receive?

Consider the gifts received by those in the story of the first Christmas.

Zechariah received the gift of silence…not being able to speak for at least nine months while he waited for his son John to be born.

His wife Elizabeth received the gift of surprise after waiting and wanting a child for so long,

And she received the an unexpected gift of the Holy Spirit when Mary came to visit

Mary. Mary received many gifts in the arrival of Jesus.

The gift of saying YES to God and allowing God to change her entire life.

The gift of Reflection. As she pondered all that happened after she birthed the baby. The gift of

Shepherds with news of Angel hosts.

Magi from far away lands bringing gifts

Prophecies from old saints in the temple at Jesus’s dedication.

Joseph had to receive the gift of interruption. And the gift of paying attention and listening …

To his dreams

To the voice of God…

Choosing to not run ahead and doing what he wanted to do, but actually listening to God’s instructions even in a dream!

The Shepherds. Ah the shepherds! just regular folks doing their regular job, minding their own business. They received the gifts of awe and wonder! As they sat by their fires on the hillside while their sheep grazed in the fields, they received the gift of GREAT NEWS from the Angel hosts that a baby was born in Bethlehem. Not just any baby, but the Savior!

The Shepherds didn’t stay out there and second guess their gift. They didn’t sit by the fire and talk about this gift.

Nope, they ran to Bethlehem in expectation! They searched for the gift wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. They truly wanted to find and receive the Gift that was, and is THE GIFT to and for the entire world…The GIFT for ALL of us. Emmanuel, God with us!

“Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.

19-20 Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told! Luke 2:15-20 The Message

So as we wrap our presents and put finishing touches on our gifts, lets consider the gifts we need this Christmas. Let’s choose to put down the packages that are cluttering our lives and weighing us down. Let’s open our hands and receive the new gifts God has for us. And let’s run to Bethlehem and truly receive the gift of God with us! And then pass that Gift along!

Merry Christmas!

 

freerangeworship.com The Gift Sacred Space will be available soon!

December 22, 2017 0 comments
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Christmas

Ave Maria by Christopher Duffley

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

This beautiful Ave Maria by Christopher Duffley who is autistic and blind reminds me that Jesus shines through all the broken people of our world. Though not really a Christmas hymn, this wonderful song gives me hope that Jesu light can shine in the darkest places and bring the light of birth and renewal.

December 22, 2017 0 comments
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Christmas

For Unto Us A Child Is Born – BeBe and CeCe Winan

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Here is a beautiful recording of For Unto Us a Child Is Born to reflect on as we head towards Christmas. The image above is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo : Joseph Mulamba-Mandangi, Nativity, 2001.

December 21, 2017 0 comments
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PoemsPrayer

God of Signs & Wonders – A Prayer

by Hilary Horn
written by Hilary Horn

By John Birch —

December 21, 2017 0 comments
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Christmas

Blue Christmas 2017

by Hilary Horn
written by Hilary Horn

By Kate Kennington Steer–

It’s so delicate, the light.

And there’s so little of it. The dark

is huge.

Just delicate needles, the light,

in an endless night.

And it has such a long way to go

through such desolate space.

 

So let’s be gentle with it.

Cherish it.

So it will come again in the morning.

We hope.

‘Just Delicate Needles’, Rolf Jacobsen, trans. Robert Hedin

Glimmer, ink on paper, original artwork, Kate Kennington Steer

People in the middle of depression are beings who have to live, for a while, without a story, which is why it feels as though you’ve lost your soul.  But this period is a dark room where you’re developing the next stage of your life before living it.  The work will be all the more vivid if you’re patient and let it take its course.

Gwyneth Lewis, Sunbathing in the Rain

It feels like for most of this last year I have indeed been living ‘without a story’, when depression has pulled me back deep down into a grip I thought, hoped against hope, had loosened, and a virus has brought me nearly four months of voice and bed rest.  This literal silence that has been imposed on me through losing my voice this summer mirrors the sense that has accompanied me since Lent that I ‘have nothing to say’.  I have written no posts for my shot at ten paces blog and I have not contributed to this community since this time last year.  I have felt that I cannot formulate a coherent thought, yet at the same time I have been aware that the outer silence of my circumstances has only revealed either a yawning cavern of numb blankness or the noisiness within; pent up voices from long ago have risen from my murkiest depths, and have found no outlet to express their howls in either verbal, written or visual forms.  Without uttering a sound

 

I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might,

    I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.

 

I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord;

    my life was an open wound that wouldn’t heal.

When friends said, “Everything will turn out all right,”

    I didn’t believe a word they said.

I remember God—and shake my head.

    I bow my head—then wring my hands.

I’m awake all night—not a wink of sleep;

    I can’t even say what’s bothering me.

I go over the days one by one,

    I ponder the years gone by.

I strum my lute all through the night,

    wondering how to get my life together.

(Psalm 77.1-6, The Message)

I am not alone in struggling with periods of an inability to express myself in any meaningful way.  Any artist has their times of ‘block’, any one with mental health needs has their seasons of such numbness it feels like isolating dumbness; most people, if they are honest, will identify occasions where they felt not, or mis-, understood; and anyone committed to exploring their faith will have come face to fearful face with the sense of God’s absence and silence.

And yet, though being locked into wordlessness through fear, stress and anxiety too often makes me feel desperate, I am left wondering whether this time of an enforced embracing of deliberate silence is a gifted reminder not only of the elemental presence and power of God as Word, but also that I need to counterbalance this presence with the elemental power and presence of God as Silence?

I wonder if perhaps I might learn to see that one of the anguishing gifts of deep depression is an opportunity to embrace ‘having nothing to say’, having ‘no story’ to tell, as paradoxically a sign of renewal, and as a confirmation that I will find a story is waiting for me in its shadows?

Just as I was succumbing to the virus and losing my voice in August, I serendipitously picked up from my brother’s bookshelf Ernest Kurtz & Katherine Ketcham’s The Spirituality of Imperfection and read:

Spirituality is not spectacular, but spectacularly simple, and that is precisely why we find it so difficult to define or describe. The profoundly simple is simply ineffable: It literally cannot be spoken.  The Hebrew Bible portrays Moses and Jeremiah as protesting, when called by God, that they “cannot speak”, a claim that has been interpreted by some scholars as evidence that these prophets laboured under some kind of speech defect.  This interpretation suggests two ideas: First, God chooses the least likely individuals to be divine spokespersons, and second, through this choice, God signals the ineffability – the literal “un-speakability” – of spiritual wisdom. The spiritual is simply beyond words. (38)

Rather than seeing only lack and grief in my silence, the possibility that I might have even the merest nodding acquaintance with Moses and Jeremiah’s experience of God is such an encouragement to me.  I hesitate to call myself any kind of divine spokesperson, but I believe I have known the joy of being spoken through, of experiencing times of being a conduit between God and God’s creations.  I long for my photography and visual art to be a medium through which others might encounter their God, discovering for themselves the infinite number of ways there are of seeing God without words.  And it is no coincidence I know, that even in the midst of depression’s darkness I am being invited to see this season of Joy is present in it; and in me.  

On this shortest day of winter light, and as I remember all those made blind and dumb by illness, grief, depression, torture and persecution, I reflect again on the words of I read on the first Sunday of Advent:

Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,

    together they sing for joy;

for in plain sight they see

    the return of the Lord to Zion,

((Isaiah 52.8, NRSV)

The challenge of this day then for me is to choose to let the quiet of the incarnation truth – God is in this pain, here, now, with me – break into my anguish; and dare to believe that becoming a spokesperson of Silence just might usher in the return of the (in)expressible One we call the ‘Joy to the World’.

December 21, 2017 2 comments
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Christine Sine is the founder and facilitator for Godspace, which grew out of her passion for creative spirituality, gardening and sustainability. Together with her husband, Tom, she is also co-Founder of Mustard Seed Associates but recently retired to make time available for writing and speaking.
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