In the northern hemisphere, this solstice occurs during what is typically the coldest season of the year. Throughout history winter has been regarded as the season of hibernation, stillness, melancholy, famine, dormancy, darkness and cold. The symbolism of the winter solstice to-date represents the coming of lighter days and potentially elevated optimism, energy and hope.
As December cold enveloped the Western Front, a very remarkable Christmas story developed – an unofficial truce was observed by an estimated 100,000 British and German troops on the first Christmas Eve of the war.
Theme: The Everywhere God
If we allowed ourselves to meet God everywhere, each day would become a Christmas. Christmas is not so much a season of the year as a season of the human heart.
On the theme: The Tree, The Carol, the Child
Christmas is a time to move into the world of images and dreams, a time to allow the 'make believe' happen. Let us be still and reflective.
What can we learn from the Christmas story? I believe that just as Jesus seemed to be aware of the Divine Spark (or Christ) presence within him, which allowed him to love almost unreservedly and break boundaries, so too we are invited to see this Divine Spark within ourselves. God is literally with us. And isn't this what we need in today's world, where we see atrocities and tragedies such as the ones I listed above? If each of us were to acknowledge our inner divinity, and then recognize our neighbour's inner divinity - regardless of their religious beliefs or non-beliefs - would we then see larger stepping stones toward global peace?
O Ultimate mystery, who comes to us in many pictures, grant that the story of Christmas may awaken the child within us
We rejoice that Jesus led people to discover the sacred in the ordinary: in the crowd, in the lowly, in the everyday life, in human yearnings to be better people, and in being neighbor to one another.
This past year, at my congregation on Cape Cod, we began to celebrate the seasons of the year as part of our affirmation
Most Christians, however, have a different take on the monistic approach, and believe that a divine presence inheres in all that is. God is. And God is everywhere, although hidden except to the eyes of faith. As progressive Christians, this is where we must take our stand. The sacred and the secular co-inhere. The one is in the other. With this as our basis, the questions now become: what language do we use? to whom are we speaking? do we speak directly of God? Let’s assume that we are at a ceremony of some sort, perhaps a wedding, a Thanksgiving dinner, a Christmas day gathering, a funeral. Let us also suppose that the crowd is mixed: some Christians, some Jews, some secularists. Is there a language that not only will not alienate anyone but will also communicate to them the depth of the moment? I believe there is.
Full of God, full to birthing, Mary howls: head back, hair tossed, Hands skyward with joy That wrongs are about to be righted, Salvation's about to be sighted.
Follow a star that’s twinkling with courage, blazing with possibility to the space, the essence that is God.
By faith, Mary let go of fear, and engendered a mothering God
Born to a poor uneducated carpenter and his partner All: Jesus was one with oppressed humankind
Christmas Prayer, December 1992
A baby cries... and its cry commands our attention. What does it need, how can we provide?
My "musing" a few weeks ago focused on a 7-year old boy's question: "What ideas do you have about how to stop the
by Howard Thurman
I will light candles this Christmas. Candles of joy, despite all sadness. Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.
In Advent, we build the framework of Christmas together we put up scaffolding signalling something’s being renovated something new is being created.
Come, let us walk the road that Mary walked the challenging road from Nazareth to Bethlehem not knowing what the future holds.
This past Saturday night, my wife Roberta and I stood with a group of people on Hollywood Boulevard, holding flickering candles. Passers-by might
Leader: Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ. People: We celebrate the birth of Jesus, who showed us how to express God by letting the Christ within be our guide.
Leader: It is a night of anticipation, a night of waiting. People: We wait, as Mary and Joseph waited for the birth of their son.
I am what comes before sand and sandstone Chickens and eggs. I am the unproven truth On which all proofs depend.
We believe in an Ultimate Reality, a reality beyond our words