Serendipity Soiree

The Christmas season can be many things:

a season of compassion and giving, or

a season of frenzied me-first materialism.

This year, as we strive to choose the former and eschew the latter,

let us pray for the people of Greece.

You may have seen the news reports. The violence. The tear-gas infused clouds of chaotic protest.

You may have heard the story of the youth who was killed by police.

If you have seen these things, then surely you have also heard the reports

that label protesters as hoodlums who will not show their faces.

What you probably haven’t seen is the following statement.

Circulated at his funeral, this litany was written by friends of the young one who was slain:

WE WANT A BETTER WORLD, HELP US

We are not terrorists, nor “hooded ones” nor “unknown-knowns”

WE ARE YOUR CHILDREN.
They are the “unknown-knowns”.

We have dreams. Don’t destroy them.
We are alive, don’t stop us

REMEMBER

You were also young once
Today you run after money, you only worry about
appearances, you’ve grown fat, you’re bald

YOU’VE FORGOTTEN

We hoped for your support
We hoped for your concern
so that it was us who made you feel proud, this time

BUT IT WAS IN VAIN.

Your lives are nothing more than lies, you’ve lowered your head,
You’ve dropped your pants and
you’re awaiting the day of your death

You lack imagination, you don’t love anything anymore, you don’t do
anything
creative
You only buy and sell

MATERIALISM ON ALL SIDES
LOVE ON NONE – THE TRUTH ON NONE

Where are our parents?
Where are the artists?
Why aren’t you in the streets?

HELP US
(signed) THE YOUTH

PS: Stop shooting tear gas. We’ve cried enough without your help!

———————————————-

Informed prayer changes us,

works its way past our preconceived notions

so that the peace we seek for the world

begins in our own hearts.

Having heard both “sides” of the story,

let us pray for the people of Greece.

And as we work this prayer within our hearts,

may God see fit to rework our lives

so that we may become

peacemakers

peaceseekers

peacesharers

May the peace of Christ be with you this Advent.

And as it is with you, so may it be throughout the world.

This year has been hard…

In our congregation we’ve had a lot to work through. Change. Birth. Death. Growth. Capital Campaign. Fear. And that was just the first half of 2008. Then the economy crashed…

The bankers, stock-advisors and contractors were hit first. Some quietly went bankrupt while others still cling tenuously to their jobs. The shockwave surged out from there, engulfing many in its path. Money is tight all around – and people are scared.

By all reckoning, this should be a blue Christmas.

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And yet, this Advent season has been a time of great warmth and light for our congregation. I have been humbled and awed by the generosity of these people in this time:

-The women saddened because someone else had already taken the tag they wanted off the angel tree – the tag for a teenager who wants an ipod

-The teenager silently slipping $20 bills out of his wallet for a special Christmas offering

-The choir members creating the perfect care package for a family who may spend Christmas in the waiting areas of a Children’s Hospital while their two year old fights for his life

These people remind me daily what Christmas is really about: light in a time of darkness.

————-

Just as Christmas is celebrated as the days reclaim their power after the longest night of the year, our observance of the holiday – our remembrance of Christ’s birth as a part of God’s unexpected and unusual plan for the world – brings increased life and light into our homes, our hearts and our lives.

In times such as these, we need Christmas. When children teeter on the verge of death, we need the Christ-child. When the finances are failing and things seem so very dark, we need the light of hope that spreads among Advent-minded people. When all we can feel is the chill of fear and the numbness of grief, we desperately need the warm glow of God’s love revealed in the birth of that tiny, vulnerable baby.

When the world is falling apart, we need Christmas.

And the miracle of it all is that no matter what each passing year gives or takes away, Christmas always comes.

Tree of Light