Christmas is coming. We know it well because the demons of consumerism and materialism have reared their ugly heads all around us. Hallmark has already begun their “countdown to Christmas” movies and the annual barrage of gift catalogues has hit us.
Most of us find ourselves in a real bind at this season. Do we have a gift-free Christmas and turn our backs entirely on consumerism? Do we buy only gifts that come from fair trade, slave free, or local organization and feel that we are making difference with our purchases? Or do we develop a “holier-than-thou” attitude and turn our backs completely on the secular celebration of the season?
If we are honest, we all struggle with these issues and are not sure how to enter into the true spirit of Christmas without disappointing our kids or denying our own enjoyment of Christmas goodies and unexpected presents. Simplify Christmas, Celebrate Christ, we tell ourselves while hoping that we will find a new iPhone under the tree.
For most of us, our simplification of Christmas is a compromise that hopefully does focus more on the celebration of the birth of Christ than on the secular materialistic spirit of the season. If you are struggling with these issues, here are some thoughts to reflect on before the season gets into full swing.
Simplify Christmas.
When I posted this prayer and talked about the need to simplify, the traffic on the blog zoomed. People everywhere are looking for resources to help them keep their time and resources under control. People of faith are looking for a new rhythm that will enable them to truly focus on the presence of Christ and bear witness to the love of God.
Here are a couple of resources to explore to help:
- Buy Nothing Christmas
- Unplug the Christmas Machine
- Simple Living Works is a great resource for simplifying our lives, not just at Christmas, but all year long. I particularly recommend listening to some of their “Whose Birthday Is It Anyway?” podcasts.
- Christmas Gifts that Won’t Break provides weekly Advent reading, looks at spiritual gifts that bring hope, peace, joy, and love to family, community, and world and challenges people to rethink the gifts they ask for and give during the Advent and Christmas seasons.
- Only give gifts of homemade toys and/or crafts
- Give toys away at Christmas rather than accumulating more.
- Host a toy exchange with friends.
Think About Going Green
How about a living Christmas tree this year? We have used a living tree for many years and most nurseries have them available in many different sizes. You may want to plant the tree outside when you are finished with it, or, like us, put it outside still in the pot to keep growing until next year. Trees like this often survive for many years as long as you do not bring them inside.
Also, for some ideas for thinking about sustainability at Christmas time, check out: How To Have A Green Christmas. I love some of their suggestions like a battery-free Christmas, connecting to nature and alternatives to gift wrapping. They also have some excellent suggestions on sustainable giving that will probably be added to my master list next year.
With limited travel this year due to COVID-19, we will most likely be saving fossil fuels and other energy resources by staying home and staying connected to friends and family through video chats and other distant socializing platforms. Consider how this is impacting the earth during your holiday season!
Celebrate Advent and Keep the Christmas Festivities For Christmas.
Advent begins November 29th. In the liturgical calendar this is the season of waiting, leading up to Christmas. This post by Charlie Clauss has some great thoughts on why this matters. To truly enter into the spirit of Advent, I try to get my Christmas shopping done early. It helps keep me focused on the real meaning of the countdown to Christmas.
I start my Advent preparations early, refurbishing my Advent garden and going on retreat to clear my mind and set priorities for the season. This is a great discipline for me that helps me both focus and simplify.
Give Christmas Away This Year
Consider alternative celebrations to the usual Christmas parties. A couple of years ago, MSA team member Cindy Todd made soap for an event at Church of the Beloved in Edmonds, WA, whose theme was – A Slave Free Christmas. It highlighted making or buying articles that were made without slave labour. Participants also watched and talked about the film Dreams Die Hard and talked about the issues of slavery still present in the United States.
Pay more for less when you buy gifts. Tom and I are Christmas people and, to be honest, could not really imagine no gifts at Christmas, but we do restrict our gift-giving and try to buy locally produced or fair trade items as much as possible. One of my good friends receives a monthly package of coffee from Camano Island Coffee Roasters which partners with Agros to enable communities in Central America to get on their feet. There are a growing array of stores that provide fair traded gifts in everything from clothing to soccer balls.
One of my favourite places to shop at this season is Ten Thousand Villages.
Consider alternative charitable gifts to organizations like World Concern, and Heifer Project that provide animals and other gifts for people in impoverished communities to enable them to start small businesses.
Consider gifts from the Godspace store this Christmas. Godspace also has a number of Advent and Christmas resources that make great gifts too. Our prayer cards make great stocking stuffers and can be used throughout the year to bring rhythm and reflection into peoples’ lives.
Give away one day’s wages to an organization of your choice – like One Days Wages – that works to overcome poverty.
Watch these videos
This one from A New American Dream is a good one for reflecting on the values that underly your Christmas expenditure. Is Christ truly at the center of your celebrations?
This one from Advent Conspiracy is even more compelling. Watch it prayerfully. What changes might God ask of you this Christmas season?
[AC] Promo – Living Water International from Advent Conspiracy on Vimeo.
This is part of a series on Christmas/Advent resources.
- Advent Activities for Families and Kids for 2020
- Helping Kids Give Back This Christmas
- Advent/Christmas Music from a Rich Array of Traditions
- Getting Ready for Advent/Christmas Worship Resources for the Season
- Choosing Your Scripture Readings for the Coming Year
- Who Will You Invite to the Manger?
- Advent Candle Light Liturgy
- What On Earth Are The O Antiphons
Resources from Godspace for Advent and Christmas
Godspace has a variety of resources available for celebrating this season.
- Lean Towards the Light this Advent & Christmas + Advent Cards Bundle compiled by Christine Sine and Lisa DeRosa
- Lean Towards the Light Advent Retreat Online – video sessions by Christine Sine along with handouts to prepare for the coming of the Christ Child this Advent.
- A Journey Toward Home: Soul Travel For Advent to Lent compiled by Kristin Carroccino and Christine Sine
- Waiting for the Light: An Advent Devotional compiled by Ricci Kilmer, Susan Wade and Christine Sine
- Prayer Cards – more than Christmas gifts. These have been used for daily devotions, grief counseling, small groups and congregational prayers.
Check out the entire resource list here for more ideas for Advent and Christmas.
Godspace has a number of Advent resources available for both free download and purchase. Visit our store.
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I love to knit, to take photos, write prayers and plant gardens. Each creative act crafts something unique. It holds something of my love for the person I create it, and something of my love for God. It holds part of who I am and of whom I think they are. I am blessed in its creating and I hope that others will be blessed in its sharing.
As I sit here pondering this today I think “This is something like the blessing of God.” It is present in every creative act that God performs. It holds something of who God is and who God hopes we will be come. It is always with us, – in snowflakes and raindrops, in sunsets and starry nights, in the faces of friends and strangers – waiting to be unveiled in the simple mundanes acts and trivial details of our lives. This is both awe inspiring and breath stopping.
What is your response?
Look around you at the beauty of God’s creation. Stand in the rain, allow the wind to blow through your hair, pick up a fallen leaf or crouch down and take notice of the greenery sprouting up between the concrete slabs. In what ways do these reflect the love and blessings of God? What could you do today to make you more aware of these blessings?
To see the world more clearly doesn’t mean to suddenly have 20/20 vision or invest in a powerful microscope. Nor does it mean to light a brighter light to see by. We see the world more clearly when we recognize the blessings of God all around and gives thanks to our Creator who is able to bless us with revelation through the smallest grain of sand and the mightiest waterfall.
What is your response?
Think about your past week. In what ways has the great Creator of all things been revealed more clearly through what you have seen and done? Write down your revelations. Now think about the week ahead. Are there images that come to mind even now of situations that could become wonderful revelations of the blessings of God?
Now watch the video below. Take special note of the ways that the photographer uses light to emphasize the revelation of God. Sit quietly after you watch it and think of the changing lights in your life that also reveal the blessings of God. Offer up a prayer of thanksgiving to God.
The first reality which hits you when contemplating a pilgrimage such as The Camino Francés is the distance – walking 800 kilometres is a daunting challenge in any language. But to limit the challenge to the physical is to ignore the real purpose of pilgrimage. In fact it is almost impossible to escape other realities – the Camino seems to have a purpose all its own. I freely admit that I undertook this pilgrimage as a hanger-on. It was a long-held dream of Ev (my wife) to “do the Camino” and I wasn’t about to miss out. When we set out from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, I had little idea of what might lie ahead save for the first climb through the Pyrenees and 800 kilometres of walking. The lingering question in my mind as we commenced was whether I was physically up to it.
In many ways the journey was much longer and broader. It turned out to be not just a pilgrimage across Spain, or a journey to Santiago, but a journey through my own life, through the challenges I had faced in the past, the choices I had made, and the opportunities both taken and let pass. Though there is a popular belief is that the Camino is divided into three parts: first the physical, then the emotional, and finally the spiritual, it was my experience that these were intertwined and interwoven with the social all along the way. No-one does the Camino on their own, but relies upon the provision of so many others, the encouragement and companionship of friends and strangers, and the gifts which the Camino itself manages to throw up at the most opportune and unexpected moments.
At its core, pilgrimage is about a journey of encounter with God, but it is much more. Either that, or the definition of what it is to meet God needs to be radically expanded. I dialogued (and wrestled!) with my younger self, with the landscape around me, with Ev, and with others on the way. Even the weather could join you as friend or foe, presenting questions which you would be required to answer. The full array of human character is tested and exposed – at least to yourself if not to others. There is nowhere to hide on the Camino. Previously unshed tears were released, muted joys given greater expression, prior reflections pushed deeper and given new perspective. When you have nothing to do but walk for hours on end, you can distract yourself for a time, but the questions, events and experiences remain and resurface.
At different times sifting through memories, life experiences, expectations of ourselves, and other thoughts Ev and I confirmed with each other that there was fresh insight into our own formation, and questions posed about the future. We were reminded of the power of choice, and of self-imposed expectations. We saw God in our lives in ways that we had not previously recognised. There were questions asked of us that now live… questions to deal with in the continuing journey. God was not to be found in a single place (although encountered in single places!), but was to be discovered all around: in the scenery, the pathways, the people, the weather, the learning of language, in the deep history of many of the places we trod, in the cathedrals and many village churches, and more. Perhaps we were most surprised by the deep impressions from small and often simple chapels maintained in the small rural communities. The simplicity of many village lifestyles was challenging to someone who lives in a megacity. Also, to spend so much time walking gave insight into the life of Jesus. At times there was a new appreciation of the Via Dolorosa…
I have noted elsewhere that one pilgrim along the way invited us to consider when and in what guise we would meet the devil on the way. It was a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind until that point. My first reflection was that the devil was in the destination: seeking simply to get the end point of the journey rather than staying in the moment along the way. I have come to realise that it is more complex: the devil being found in distraction, inattention, and denial – in my willingness and related creativity to avoid dealing with a thought. Invariably what was denied was only postponed.
Now that we have been home for nearly three weeks, I still find it difficult to answer the question, “How was it?” I suppose it is not unlike asking someone in their advanced years the same question about life: “How was it?” That we have lost about 11 kg between us on the journey is but one indicator of the physical toll (benefit?!) of the journey, but in its own way a reminder that we have been reshaped by the experience, and reminded that the pilgrimage did not end in Santiago. The Camino has become to us an image of the reflected life. As we have re-entered the maelstrom of a typical Western urban context, we are determined to retain the commitment to space and time for reflection – creating ways to slow down and absorb what is happening in us, around us, and to us as we seek to walk the Way. To continue life’s pilgrimage in the ordinary moments, but with intent.
Gary Heard and his wife Ev live in Melbourne Australia with their three kids Caleb, Rachel and Sam. Gary is Dean of Whitley College. Gary and Ev have just returned from walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. You can read more about their experiences through their blog Heard About the Camino.
As Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas approach we all feel pressured to do more, eat more and buy more. Finding quiet moments to sit and enjoy God is not always easy and I find I need constant reminders. I hope that you enjoy this prayer. May it inspire you to take time each day in this coming week to quiet your mind, calm your spirit and sit in the presence of God.
Woman with an Issue of Blood – Angela Johnson Light of the World Sculpture Garden
In my Monday meditation this week I talked about the importance of names. Being named in the gospels was special. Those that Jesus healed were rarely named, but it is obvious that even these unnamed people mattered to Jesus.
One of my favourite gospel stories is Mark 5:21-43. It is the story of Jesus being asked by Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue to come and heal his daughter. On the way he is touched by a woman who suffered for many years from constant bleeding. He stops and takes time to make sure she is identified and that everyone know she has been healed. She is poor, she is ostracized because of her condition and she is obviously afraid, because according to the Jewish tradition of the time she should have been part of that crowd. She was unclean and certainly unfit to touch the hem of Jesus garment. But Jesus welcomes her, heals and tells her “Your faith has made you well, go in peace (shalom) your suffering is over.” (Mark 5:34)
Llya Rypin, the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter, 1871
In the meantime Jairus’s daughter dies. I can just imagine the angry mutterings in the crowd when this is announced. Why did he wait? Why did he bother about this nobody when he had the chance to heal an important leader’s daughter? Some I am sure wanted to blame the woman for wasting Jesus time. Instead of healing her and ending her suffering, they wanted to add to it.
Jesus response to the crowd contrasts their lack of faith to that which the woman has just shown. “Don’t be afraid” he says, “just have faith.” And of course he goes on to the leader’s house and heals his now dead daughter, once more embracing and including the unclean and breaking the Jewish traditions. He touches a dead body and no matter how important this child’s parent’s may have been, that was something you were not meant to do.
This story is so profound at so many levels and it never ceases to touch my heart. The way that Jesus reaches out to the rich and the poor in a single sweeping expression of his ability to heal is awe inspiring. The fact that both are women makes it even more profound. We are never told the names of either the woman or the child, but we are aware that in this moment they are sisters embraced and welcomed together into the family of God.
This story always fills me with hope. Jesus notices the most insignificant and seemly rejected of our society. Even the poor and ostracized, those at the margins whose names we never know matter to him.
But he also reaches out to the rich and the powerful. All are included in his embrace. He does not just heal and restore them but welcomes them into the same family together. That is truly an expression of shalom and of the unconditional love of God.
I have some exciting news to share with you. Godspace is growing and changing and it is time to make these changes official. I know I shared much of this last month but feel the change is so important that I thought you would not mind me sharing it again.
This blog began as a place for me to share personal reflections about my faith and the garden. I then started asking others to contribute to the Advent and Lenten series then to a summer series. The blog has taken off in a way that I never anticipated and continues to expand and grow in its reach, partly as a result of the rich and varied contributions from other writers. I have been prayerfully considering what this means for the future.
This is not just Christine Sine’s blog anymore!
First I want to make sure that the contributions of others are given full recognition. I am more and more uncomfortable with myself being identified as the “author” of Godspace when so many others contribute. I want Godspace to become known for the variety of authors and voices not as my voice alone.
Part of my life calling is to give voice to those who have no voice and I realize that Godspace provides an outlet for some writers who do not have time or expertise for keeping your own blog. Because this blog is commonly ranked in the top 200 Christian blogs it also expands the audience for many new authors.
Second, Godspace will, over the next few months, become the official blog for Mustard Seed Associates.
So what does this mean?
We have just established a new contributor’s page with over 30 writers from 7 countries who will contribute articles, poems and liturgies regularly to the blog. We expect that this will continue to grow as we give voice to new authors and contributors. Many of these contributors have written books that we also hope to highlight over the coming months.
I am excited about this change as it will give me more time to pray, reflect and craft the meditations and prayers that I write. Quality not quantity! I will continue to be the chief contributor and editor, with Monday Meditations and Friday prayers becoming my regular weekly contributions.
How would this effect the focus of Godspace?
Sustainable life, sustainable faith is what comes to my mind when I think about what we try to communicate on Godspace. Through inspiration, contemplation and creativity, we seek to provide resources that encourage people to reimagine their lives and faith to be more effective in addressing the challenges of the rapidly changing world in which we live.
This focus will continue as a place to share the interaction between faith and everyday life, as well as a place to raise awareness of issues of sustainability and concern for justice for those at the margins.
At the moment I have developed a weekly rhythm which we will endeavour to maintain, though I hope you will bear with fluctuations in this that may be necessary as we experiment and develop this new structure:
Monday meditation,
Tuesday – Thursday reflections on life, sustainability and faith,
Friday – prayer for the week.
Saturday – Lets get creative.
Sunday – Time for Sabbath rest.
We will also continue to post seasonal and topical resource lists that will be greatly enriched by the additional contributors and their suggestions.
We want to enlist your help too as we work through these changes. Are their topics you would like to see addressed on the blog?
Celebrate the Change!
We hope that you will pray for us and celebrate with us as we make these changes. Check out the new contributors. Read their posts, share them with your friends, and above all give us your feedback as we move forward.
In my family this last month has been marked by the excitement generated by the UK hosting the Rugby World Cup. In the build up to the tournament I kept hearing the phrase the ‘Road to Victory’, (in definite capital letters) and the hype that the English team needed only to win 7 progressive matches to lift the Cup. As I sat in a stadium of over 80,000 fans I could feel the hope of the fans as their songs resonated in my breastbone: the English supporters adopting the old negro spiritual
Swing lo sweet chariot
Comin’ for to carry me home
and the Welsh supporters producing all the harmonies of their eighteenth century hymn
Guide me, O thou great Redeemer,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy powerful hand:
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven
Feed me till I want no more.
Feed me till I want no more.
These songs reminded me of snatches of other old hymns and spirituals that are part of our faith heritage which tell stories about victory being our goal and that ‘home’ is the victory, and this caused me to pause. I suddenly wondered if I really had any clue about what ‘victory’ looks or sounds like in terms of my own Christian faith journey.
Is it just that I don’t have the certain faith of my forebears? Have my experience of years of depression and chronic ill health cut me off, prevented me from having the hope necessary to use these military and sporting metaphors which speak of such fundamental certainty and finality as the word ‘victory’ implies?
I do have hope. And I am certain that all is being, and will be, redeemed in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. I am certain that the God of all Holiness is my ‘home’, in whom I will be able to be the true self I was created to be.
I just don’t feel victorious.
And I am equally certain it is not a linear ‘road’ to find this ‘home’, whether I think of it as being ‘at home’ to myself and the world around me on a daily basis as I join in Kingdom building here on earth; or as arriving at a final destination after death, becoming a part of the Kingdom of heaven.
What is my end goal? It is the same as my goal for this minute – union with God. Foretastes, glimpses, glances through glasses darkly mean this union can only be temporary and partial now. My enduring prayer chimes with that great Welsh hymn
Let the fiery, cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through
so that my union then will be complete.
In this light, I don’t even know if the sporting metaphor of tournament and triumphs applies at all to the faith journey. Many times I wish it was that straightforward: if you defeat this tribe, collect these points, at these times, challenge those people at those times, then you will be certain to reach x marks the spot and lift the trophy and call yourself a champion.
Yet only sometimes do I wish there were straightforward written instructions that covered the whole journey A to Z , so that one could live with this kind of innocent assurance one was doing it ‘right’. Instead I follow a guide book full of histories, visions and stories, poetry and laws, letters and prayers. And it is full of muddy and messy intentions, contradictions, and out of control emotions. None the less, out of this collection has emerged the thin running thread of an outlined route through to reconnecting to our God. Wherever I find myself in the labyrinth there is something in this collated Word that applies to the minutiae of everyday life, if only I will still myself long enough to listen. There is a signpost: this way lies Life and Love in abundance….
In thinking about all this I rediscovered Baptist song called ‘Victory in Jesus’ (hear it here)
I heard about His healing,
Of His cleansing pow’r revealing.
How He made the lame to walk again
And caused the blind to see;
And then I cried, “Dear Jesus,
Come and heal my broken spirit,”
And somehow Jesus came and bro’t
To me the victory.
That word ‘somehow’ is so crucial.
E.M. Bartlett’s 1939 hymn based on 1 Corinthians 15.57 speaks of the eternal truth at the heart of the metaphors of Victory: enduring hope. The hope that is set before us is that through Christ ‘we will all be changed’, that death has no sting, and so we are freed from our minute preoccupations:
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Most of the time we do not have the vision to see or to cope with the reality that pain, suffering, inequality and seemingly unanswered prayers are not the only thing ; that these cannot be the full story; that even death itself is not an end. We cannot grasp what victory over these things world look like. And yet, regardless of how we feel, we choose to trust that all our work to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, here, now, however puny our attempts or contributions, none and nothing are wasted, all are redeemed by Christ.
Believing this, I just take the next step. Some days with a ringing confidence, others with cringing uncertainty. I just keep walking, because I think I understand that my Creator asks me to walk in obedience and trust, and that is all I can do.
None the less, the sports image of the ‘Road to Victory’ does bring with it one significant truth. I do not travel this road alone. Indeed, I cannot or I will ‘get’ nowhere and be no one if I even try to travel alone. ‘Victory’ and ‘home’ are communal places where I am the woman God has created to me to be, and I join with you as you are created to be, and you, and you, and you…
… and we walk, wheel, limp, run, dance together side by side as People of the Way.
Kate Kennington Steer is a writer and photographer with a deep abiding passion for contemplative photography and spirituality. She writes about these things on her shot at ten paces blog. Currently she is also posting a daily iphone image as a ‘daily act of seeing’ on her Facebook page. Join in with gentle ambling conversations about contemplative photography by becoming a friend.
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