Dear Friends,
As we prepare to welcome God’s Word born anew in our lives this Christmas Day, we at The Spirit of Life wish each of you deep blessings of Christ’s peace, joy and love in your hearts. Our community has decided to celebrate Christmas this year a day early, and so our liturgy this evening (4:00PM) will include our annual Christmas pageant
complete with the sweetest angels and most watchful shepherds to be found in the kin-dom! As with any Christmas pageant, a pivotal part of the drama is that moment when Joseph’s knock on the door of the Inn and request for a place to stay is met with the infamous line “there is no room in the Inn.” As I move beyond the busyness of the season and into the deeper spirit of this sacred time, I find myself pondering my “room within,” contemplating how open ‘it’ is to receive and welcome this precious Life yearning to reside in new and deepening ways within. How in the ‘midst of it all’ might I create a deeper and wider space to allow my spirit to expand and take in more of the Love, more of the Presence that’s ‘knocking’ on the door of my heart. Often, because of the pace of our lives I associate this questions with ‘time’, but today I find myself considering ‘space’ in a different way. What have I ‘taken in’ or not ‘let go of’…. that might be leaving scant space for New Life….Each year, as we decorate our home for the holiday, I find myself leaving some decorations in the attic that no longer ‘speak’ to us….or the memories attached to them have faded…sometimes I pass these along to others, or simply create a new box of ‘old things’. Am I doing this with my heart as well? Truly creating “room in the Inn” of our heart means moving beyond….letting go….opening up new pathways to New Life. It strikes me that as in human birthing this is bloody business. It’s messy….but oh the joy when that first breath is taken and witnessed! As you move into the Christmas story in your own life this year, may you find a new spaciousness within and may the breath of God’s Spirit overwhelm you with peace and with joy!
At The Spirit of Life, we are intentional about following the call of the Spirit in our lives, by deepening our understanding of what it means to be humans who are truly led by the Holy Spirit. We invite you to come and walk with us in prayer and action at The Spirit of Life. Through our time of prayer and sharing together, we work together to grow in our self-understanding and in our relationships with God and with God’s people. We celebrate the gift of our faith and the responsibility that is ours as followers of Jesus Christ. It is our prayer that what we as a community experience in our praying together will overflow into the rest of our lives, making us more fully human and more ‘whole’….holy! Archbishop Oscar Romero in a Christmas Eve homily excerpt which we will use as a reading at Eucharist today reminds us: “We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs. We must see him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed tonight with nothing to eat, among the poor newsboys who will sleep covered with newspapers in doorways.” Where do you meet someone in need of a friend or in need of a meal or in need of a moment of care? We invite you to join us in this endeavor and journey with us as we seek to grow in our love of God and to grow in our capacity to be living expressions of God’s loving peace and justice in our world.
Christmas Blessings of Peace, Joy & Love renewed in your life and in our world
Jean & Ron