Have you heard your annunciation yet? Have you revisited the Bethlehem within your heart? Have you found the Child? Are you following the guiding star? We are always more apt to work with the outward stuff of Christmas rather than the inner stuff. We prefer to deal with the trappings of the season rather than its real meaning. The real business of Christmas is that something is supposed to happen and it is suppose to happen in us. Love is meant to be born in us in some new way--a "divine birth."
I know this sounds preposterous, but the annunciation to Mary was preposterous too. Indeed the whole Christmas narrative in the Gospels is a bit preposterous!
This Is the Season of Promise
[Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas]
Let the bells be silenced
Let the gifts be stillborn
Let cheer be muted
Let music be soundless
Violence stalks the land:
Soaring above the cry of the dying
Rising above the whimper of the starving
Floating above the flying machines of death
Listen to the long stillness:
New life is stirring
New dreams are on the wing
New hopes are being readied:
Mankind is fashioning a new heart
Mankind is forging a new mind
God is at work.
This is the Season of Promise. (Preposterous?)
Woodcarving in oak, 1980.
Love is at the heart of all things,
waiting to be born anew in us
this Christmas.
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