Tom and I have just returned from a personal retreat time up at Anacortes. These quarterly retreats are some of the most precious spiritual times of our lives. This week much of my time will be spent preparing for a retreat day here at the Mustard Seed House. If you want to simplify your life this year and focus on what really matters during the Advent and Christmas season this is a great way to do that. There is still time for you to join us either for the morning or for the full day.
Earlier this year I discovered the Japanese art of Kintsugi, the art of mending broken pottery with lacquer resin sprinkled with powdered gold, or silver or platinum. The technique visibly incorporates the repair into the new piece, highlighting the breakage instead of disguising it. The process usually results in something more beautiful and often more valuable than the original. Yet we easily discard that which is no longer perfect or functional. Mending, repairing and reusing are lost arts.
Knowing that imperfect objects can be remade into something more beautiful than the original gives me hope that that the imperfections in my life can be mended to make me into a more beautiful vessel then I was before.
None of us are without flaws yet God is able to mend and make all of us whole. And when God mends it is like pure gold has been added to our lives. There is beauty hidden in the brokenness all of us struggle with. God does not discard us because we are broken. Our remade selves are grounded in the transformation of our brokenness.
What is your response?
Watch the video below about the art of Kintsugi. What comes to your mind as you listen to this craftsman talk about his art? What areas in your life have already been mended with gold? What is the new beauty that has been formed in the mending? Write these down and spend time thanking God not just for the mending but for the brokenness that made possible new areas of beauty in your life.
Now read Colossians 1:15-20 from The Message
We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
Now listen to this video
What is one broken or dislocated part of your life in which you still long to see transformation and wholeness? Name it and lift it up before God in prayer. Ask God to act as the master craftsman mending and making whole your brokenness. Now sit in silence allowing God to speak to you. Is there a pathway to healing that God is revealing to you? What action steps might be necessary to find the wholeness and the beauty God intends for you?
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I wrote this prayer last year when starting to prepare for Advent and the Christmas season. Christmas is a season when all of us spend too much, eat too much and hurry too much. All of us need help in focusing on what really matters at this season. The strident messages of the consumer culture bombard us at every turn and it is hard to say no.
Now is the time to think about ways to simplify the season. In my post, What if the Goal of Our Economy Wasn’t More But Better, I suggested watching The Story of Solutions video from thestoryofstuff.com and gave suggestions on how to help kids give back at Christmas. (Sorry I doubled up with many of these in a more recent post). Now prayerfully consider ways that you could simplify Christmas this year and cut back on consumption.
Read the prayer above through several times and then reflect on this quote:
Simplicity is no great virtue unless wedded to right priorities. A desirable simplicity entails the recognition of what is important in life, coupled with the strength of will to structure one’s daily existence around that recognition. It requires minimizing the impact of one’s life of unimportant things, an extremely difficult task in an acquisitive and schedule-filled culture. Daniel Taylor In Search of Sacred Places(148)
What comes to mind. Write down what you feel God is saying about your need to simplify?
Now read through this passage from Mathew 6:25-33 here quoted from The Message.
If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
“Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
What comes to mind as you read this passage? What else do you need to do to simplify this Christmas?
Now listen to this song and allow God to speak to you
Here are a couple of resources to explore to help:
Simple Living Works is a great resource for simplifying our lives not just at Christmas but all the year. 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.
Truceteachers.org has an excellent guide with ideas for toy buying during the Christmas season. Some of their suggestions are be thoughtful, plan a family experience together like going for a hike, a bike ride, or helping out a neighbor and be creative.
And some ideas for families and kids from The Overflow Project on how to simplify their toys. Believe it or not kids enjoy gifts their family or friends have made far more than expensive store bought ones.
Only give gifts of home made 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 out when you are finished with 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 some ideas for thinking about sustainability at Christmas time: 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.
And let me know – how are you simplifying this Christmas?
For many, the Advent and Christmas seasons are anything but cheerful, even when we have not had to put up with nonstop Christmas music for days beforehand. For those who have lost loved ones, lost a job, or home or are struggling financially or with illness this season is anything but cheerful. And in 2020, we are grieving during this pandemic season from unmet expectations, missing family and friends, and just mourning how taxing and different this year has been. So why do we try to cover our pain and grief with Yuletide cheer?
Many churches have begun to recognize that Festivals of Carols, celebrations of Christmas, and children’s pageants do not meet everyone’s needs. To fill this gap, churches offer a Blue Christmas service, a Service of Solace or Longest Night. People who are not having a very merry Christmas, along with friends who support them, are invited to come and sit with one another in a liturgy that speaks of the love of God for the grieving.
Resources for Blue Christmas
Services
- Fidelia Magazine has an excellent liturgy for a Blue Christmas service – When Christmas Hurts.
- re:Worship always has great resources and I think has the best list for Blue Christmas ideas of any site I have visited.
Music
- Lectionary Songs has some excellent suggestions on songs for such a service.
- And another good list of Songs of Lament to consider.
- Our church’s Longest Night service used the words of Mumford and Sons song “After the Storm” for the prayer after communion, which I thought was very powerful.
After the Storm
And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.
Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won’t rot, I won’t rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won’t rot.
for those who hate their thighs and for those who have been abused.
for the bones that break and the cancer that spreads.
for blisters and splinters and hairs that split.
for asthma that seizes and for those we love who never get better.
for those who can’t get warm enough to sleep.
for those who wake early to find the dreams of beauty are not real.
for those whose coffee pots break when they need it most.
for hangovers and regrets and nights spent tossing.
Come and lament with me.
Let us attend.
For today and most days
All we bring are broken things.
- Here is a beautiful adaptation of Psalm 88 that would also make a good addition to a Blue Christmas service
Prayers
A couple of years ago, when grieving the still raw death of my mother, I wrote my own Blue Christmas poem.
On this long dark night we await the coming of Christ.
We long for the light of his presence,
With us and in us.
When our souls are deeply troubled,
and our hearts break with the weight of sorrow,
may our grief be seasoned with love,
and our sorrow be buoyed by hope.
In our times of God-forsakenness and estrangement,
May we gaze on the innocent One,
made perfect through suffering.
and see in him our vulnerable God,
who saves in weakness and pain.
May our suffering empty us of pride,
and lead us to true joy
our only security,
in Christ the infinite depths of God’s grace.
Let me end with this meaningful prayer by Ted Loder which appears in Guerrillas of Grace,
O God of all seasons and senses,
grant us the sense of your timing
to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.
O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.
O God, grant us the sense of your timing.
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There are obviously endless resources out there to assist us in designing worship services and activities for this season. For some the observances revolve around the lighting of the Advent candles and the Eucharistic celebration. For others it is the preaching of the gospel story and the Christmas pageant that take centre stage. Whatever your faith orientation here are some of my favourite resource sites that I think you will find useful. I have tried to draw from any traditions and cultures.
Advent resources from Ignatian Spirituality:
Christmas & Advent ideas from David Keen at Ideas, Resources and Donkey Rides
Bosco Peters in New Zealand has wonderful Advent and Christmas resources at liturgy.co.nz
The Billabong is a great Australian site with resources for both kids and adults.
John Birch has the most wonderful Celtic Advent liturgies available.
Text This Week always has an awesome array of resources for all seasons, but especially for Advent and Christmas.
Lectionary Liturgies provides liturgies based on the RCL readings for each Sunday of the church year.
Lent and Beyond – An Anglican Prayer blog also posts good seasonal resources.
engageworship.org is a UK site which has some good seasonal resources.
Biblical Art provides art classes, clip art and more for worship services.
And the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese has some interesting icons and explanation of Christmas from an Orthodox perspective.
A rich array of Advent resources as well as Christmas and Epiphany from Churchyear.net
Blue Eyed Ennis has a great list of Advent resources on her blog that are worth looking at.
Some great ideas from Intreractive worship – for Advent: The Feeling of Waiting and Prayers of the People Station as well as this community-made icon really inspired me.
Plan an Advent or Christmas Outreach
Christmas is the season when all of us think of giving to our favourite charities, the homeless and the poor, but there are other ways to that we can give at this season.
United Methodist Church has some good ideas for an Advent outreach in this article – everything from scavenger hunt with random acts of kindness to Christmas eve cookie giveaway for people who must work.
The beginning of Advent is only a few weeks away and many of us are already buying gifts and trying to figure out how to cut back on the rampant consumerism that sweeps through the season. Helping kids to enjoy the blessing of giving rather than receiving at Christmas is a huge challenge. The list below is adapted from one that I found in Parent Map.
Support Kids of the World: Helping your children understand that other kids don’t have the privileges they do and need their help can be an enjoyable experience. I love what VIVA, a UK based organization does in sponsoring Christmas parties in poor communities around the world. They are engaged in many ways to help keep children at risk safe and healthy.
Buy a livelihood for families. Gifts that provide a livelihood for those who struggle with hunger and poverty can be particularly meaningful as they empower children and make them realize we can all make a difference in this world. World Concern and Heifer Project are just a couple of the organizations that now provide opportunities for the giving of livestock – from chickens to cattle. Tearfund UK has a program where you buy a gift voucher and then the recipient decides what they will give. This might be more fun for some kids.
Donate a Bedtime story. Many families have few or no age-appropriate books in their home and kids miss out on the important literacy-building ritual of bedtime stories. First Book is a nonprofit that works to distribute new books to low-income families in schools in the U.S. and Canada.
Hold a Make Something Party. Some years ago, the Buy Nothing Day campaign started to counteract the Black Friday shopping frenzy of North American Culture. A group in Southern California started a Make Something Day instead. I love the positive spin on this. Organize a party where your kids can help make gifts for underprivileged kids in your communities. There is something very special about a gift that has been handcrafted. I can guarantee that the recipient will hold onto it for years to come. (Can easily be done virtually! Send out a list of needed items before you host the video chat party so everyone has what they need to craft “together” online).
Make a Loan, Help a Family. This is a great suggestion for older kids that you not only want to encourage to give but who you also want to learn about investing and financial responsibility. KIVA and Hope International are two of the many Christian organization that facilitate micro-lending.
Shed a Light on a Brighter Future. One Million Lights is a nonprofit that aims to provide sustainable, usable lights to homes without electricity in developing countries through a buy-one-give-one model. Buy solar-charged lanterns and you keep one and a family in need gets the other – a brilliant (pardon the pun) idea.
Give Hope for Tomorrow: Plant a Tree, Invest in a Farmer. In the Plant with A Purpose alternative gift catalogue, a tree only costs $10 and to invest in a farmer is $22. I think that this type of gift can be a wonderful educational tool to help children understand the consequences of environmental degradation. Again, the fact that we can actually do something to change the situation can be very empowering for young people.
Invite International Students Over for Christmas. There are lots of international students who do not have anywhere to go for Christmas. Consider inviting some over on either Christmas Eve or Christmas day. Contact your local college or university to find out how to extend this invitation. We have done this for the last couple of years. It has become a real highlight of the Christmas season for us. At the same time, get your kids to read up on Christmas traditions from around the world as suggested above.
Buy Fair Trade or Locally Produced for all your Purchases. A growing number of organizations provide fair traded gift items. Ten Thousand Villages is one one that we have frequented for years. Another possibility is One World Futbol’s smart soccer ball requires no pumping and never goes flat. Each time you purchase one, another is donated to a community in need. Or, for those that live in the Seattle area take you kids on a tour of Theos Chocolates and end by purchasing gifts for all the family.
Protect the World’s Animals. You might like to adopt an animal at your local zoo or contribute to an animal shelter or participate in one of the World Wild Life’s projects. One of my standard Christmas gifts is National Wildlife Federation’s monthly magazines – Ranger Rick and Ranger Rick Jr. It is an award-winning educational magazine that provides entertainment and instruction throughout the year.
Memories for the New Year. Gift each other with a memory book or video. Reflect on the previous year and capture children’s memories that can become part of your family and church story.
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.
Consider donating to Christmas Backpacks where you can “share a gift of love and the Gospel with a child in need”.
Truceteachers.org has an excellent guide with ideas for toy buying during the Christmas season. Some of their suggestions are be thoughtful, plan a family experience together like going for a hike, a bike ride, or helping out a neighbor and be creative. They also have resources about children and media that could be helpful when thinking through what to purchase for your child this year.
Some ideas for families and kids from The Minimalist Mom on how to simplify their toys. Believe it or not, kids enjoy gifts their family or friends have made far more than expensive storebought ones.
- Only give gifts of homemade toys and or crafts
- Give toys away at Christmas rather than accumulating more.
- Host a toy exchange with friends.
This is part of a series on Christmas/Advent resources.
- Advent Activities for Families and Kids for 2020
- Helping Kids Give Back This Christmas
- Celebrate With Simplicity 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.
- NEW DEVOTIONAL! 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 counselling, 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.
In my post, Come to the Manger Who Will You Invite?, I shared that Kenneth Bailey believes Jesus’ family was not abandoned in a stable but was surrounded by friends and family at his birth. To this birth celebration the shepherds, outcasts from their society, and the wise men, Gentile foreigners were also invited. Bailey also points out that Jesus did not come in the expected place or way. The Jews expected that through the birth of the Messiah great things would happen in the city of Jerusalem and through this the city would be glorified.
Although the glorious events projected for honouring the city of Jerusalem never happened, the Gospel authors perceived them to be taking place in the birth of Jesus. Around the CHILD there was a great light and the glory of the Lord appeared. To the CHILD came Arab wise men from the desert on camels bringing gold and frakincense. Shepherds visited the CHILD, not the city. The great hopes for the city were transferred to the child in a manger. Indeed, the glory of the Lord shone around about the CHILD. This shift from the city to the child is significant.
The birth stories de-Zionise the tradition. Hopes and expectations for the city are seen as fulfilled in the birth of the child. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, (54)
This idea has made me wonder: What are the unexpected places in which Jesus is appearing? And who do we welcome to the manger? Who else should we invite to this celebration that may otherwise be ignored or excluded – the prostitutes, the sex traffickers, those in prison, people of other racial backgrounds, other religions, other sexual persuasions, the poor and the homeless, even those we are estranged from. Do we think there is a place for everyone at the manger? If so how do we extend that invitation so that these people feel welcome?
As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the reflections in our new devotional, A Journey Toward Home, is about the French custom of santons, a French custom in which clay models of villagers are positioned around the manger bringing their gifts to the Christ child.
I love this idea of all our neighbours, those we enjoy and those we don’t want to have anything to do with, clustered around the manger, invited into that place of intimate hospitality with God. So let’s create our own “santons” this Advent and Christmas season, santons of words, photos, and actions, not figures of clay.
This concept will be the focus for the Advent/Christmas posts on the blog this year. When I first posted this invitation, several people responded with their ideas of where and how we could gather with friends and strangers around the manger in church, in homeless shelters, in refugee camps, on the borders that keep out the unwanted. I am also making this my personal focus for the season and invite you to join me.
Create Your Own Come to the Manger Wreath.
What are the unexpected places in which you have seen the Christ child appear and the gospel story be lived out?
Who are the friends and strangers you will welcome to the manger this year?
Read Hebrews 12:1-3 several times slowly.
Sit in silence for a few minutes thinking of those you would like to see around the manger. What places come to mind? Where are the unexpected places that the gospel story is being lived out? Who are the people that you think of? What family, friends and neighbours do you see yourself together with? Who are those that have died – family, mentors and saints through the ages whose lives inspired and encouraged you? Who have you ignored or turned your back on that needs to be welcomed? Who have you despised as the shepherds were despised? Perhaps you need to seek forgiveness and invite them to the circle around the manger? Who are the foreigners that should be there? Perhaps people of other faiths, cultures and sexual orientation?
- Now get together a piece of white poster board, a pair of scissors and some glue.
- Print out the manger scene above or photograph your own nativity scene and paste it in the centre of the poster board.
- Find photos, paintings, icons or other images of those who came to your mind. Print them out.
- Glue them in a wreath around the image of the manger. Leave some space for more images to be added as they come to mind.
- Hang it in a prominent place in your home.
Use it as focus for prayer throughout the Advent and Christmas season. Add photos and images as you are interact with other members of your community who should be included.
Send us your photos and tell us your stories.
This is part of a series on Christmas/Advent resources.
- Advent Activities for Families and Kids for 2020
- Helping Kids Give Back This Christmas
- Celebrate With Simplicity 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.
- NEW DEVOTIONAL! 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 counselling, 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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