My womb once so full and expectant is now empty of life, its purpose fulfilled. My ovaries are shrunken, no longer bursting with possibility. My breasts are dried up, no babies to suckle. I think of little Mary, young and frightened, looking at her newborn son suckling at her breast, her precious womb no longer a tabernacle for the holy. “Women will be saved only through childbirth,” was the theology of her people. Some still today, consider us women to only be saved through the blessing of Mary’s womb.
This Christmas day, I miss my children’s laughter. Motherhood has been the absolutely most fulfilling, joyous experience of my life. In many ways, it has saved me. My children’s love and respect nourish me. My proudest accomplishment is this: I taught my children to pray and they know God’s love and follow the way of Christ. I feel very connected to Mary today. It was the fruit of her womb that has given the fruit of my womb purpose, possibility and nourishment for their deepest hunger.
I wonder, does Mary miss the laughter of the boy Jesus and the wonder in his eyes? Does she remember the magic of being able to comfort her child? Does the celebration of Christmas remind her of the sacred center in her body that made God incarnate possible? I like to think that she does. Merry Christmas, Mary, Mother of God, Divine tabernacle of the breath of Heaven.

St Thomas, Apostle

In the deepest night the star of morning
has heralded the Child’s birth.
The coming of the Child is for us
the dawn of God’s salvation here on earth.

Trust what you see, believe the vision,
lay bare your hearts to God’s own Word,
do not refuse the Savior’s mission,
accept the message you have heard.

God has no other sign,
no other Light in our darkened world to give
than this Jesus to be our Savior,
a God with whom we all can live.

God has revealed to every nation
love of humankind in Jesus our Lord.
In Jesus all persons may see salvation,
and earth made new in God’s own Word.

The promised One of Israel’s story,
a bridegroom clad with fire and light,
the morning sun in all its glory,
dispelling darkness and the night
has come to live with us for ever,
uniting us in peace and joy,
and in Christ’s Body we need never,
be parted from our God above.
- Author Unknown

A century or two ago, this season called Advent was a time of repentance with fasting and prayers of confession; not exactly the things we associate with joy. Christmas was a feast day but things like Santa Clause and Christmas trees and stockings hung on the mantel with care were considered to be pagan rituals and not becoming for Christians. My mother even recalls her pastor in the 1940’s pounding the pulpit and loudly proclaiming that anyone with a Christmas tree in thier home was surely destined for perdition. In those higher churches that honored Advent as a time of spiritual preparation for the coming Christ Child, this was a time of emptying oneself, an inner housecleaning of sorts, to make room in one’s heart for Jesus. This dismal self-flagellation became too depressing in the midst of winter so the third Sunday of Advent became a day of Joy, designated so by the pink candle in the Advent wreath.
Joy is actually much harder to come by than simply lighting a pink candle, isn’t it? It is much deeper than happiness. It has nothing to do with circumstances that we regard as blessings. And circumstances we regard as awful cannot take away the joy of God’s presence.
I have been surprised by joy. The fullness of the joy of life in Christ has mostly come to me in times of loss and grief. I look back on a time in which I had lost everything – my house, my profession, my children’s emotional closeness, my health, my friends, my church – and I wonder why I wasn’t more depressed than I was. I actually remember that time as a time of deep peace and the joy of being, a reprieve from “doer.” Sometimes I think the more we have to occupy ourselves the less we have room to be occupied by the source of all joy.

We missed church today. We were expecting a “snow day” here in the Southern Tier. It was mostly sleet followed by gentle snow falling all day. My mother-in-law is here for two weeks – I’m not sure if she loves us or our house more. She is so excited to be in this space with us. This is a place of peace. We live in a house built into the side of a hill overlooking a stream and a forest. With the snow, it feels like a winter wonderland. Regardless of the time of year, this home exudes a sense of peace.
It wasn’t always that way in this space. The woman who built this home was hit by a drunk driver, living her last years in a coma in a far away institution less than two years later. The family who bought her home left signs of growing much marijuana (for medicinal purposes I am sure). The broken and dented doors we inherited leaves us believing there were anger management issues at the least. This room that is now my office showed signs of the “dark arts” that fascinated their son. The young couple who followed them to this place loved this house as a party house but the birth of their child made a house built into a hill with a spiral staircase in the middle a little less than practical. And so here we are.
We have made it a place of healing, prayer and retreat. People feel it when they walk in the door and look out huge sliding glass doors onto pine trees and a trickling creek. But it isn’t the house itself that makes this space healing and peaceful. It’s what we do in this space that changes a once sad and violent space into a place of peace.
I think that is usually the case. The holy and sacred places in this world became that because of what was done or not done in them. This earth itself looks like a beautiful blue ball brimming with joy and designed for peace when we see it from space. But what we do on this earth and to this earth makes this space in the universe either a place of peace or a place of destruction. Peace on Earth the angels sang. Indeed.

I haven’t been able to post much the past few days. Travelling does me in. Insomnia and other sleep disorders are par for the course with Fibromyalgia. I have developed an adverse reaction to Ambien and Lunesta – I sleep walk and sleep eat to the tune of a 30 pound weight gain…and I needed to lose more than 30 pounds before this all started. So no medications, just giving the herbal remedies a try. This means I am unable to get to sleep until 5 or 6 am and then only for a few hours. Which means the pain I have raises to the level of tranisiton labor pains. Fortunely these pains move around from one muscle insertion point to another so I don’t get bored and I have relief in the area the pain has left.
If you are still reading this and are not totally bored with this list of complaints, I have found a way to redeem this experience. About five years ago, I learned several chants – Hebrew, Latin and Sanskrit. They are all prayers to God for clarity or mercy or disolution of delusions. Because I have practiced them so many times, they come to my mind automatically. So when the sleeplessness persists, my mind automatically goes to the Jesus Prayer “Om Jesu Christ” and then a few hours later to the Gayatri mantra (the most ancient prayer known to us) or to the Shema (the ancient prayer of the Hebrew people). As these prayers sing through my mind, I am lifted out of myself and into the presence of God. There I remember all the people who have asked me to pray for them. And I bring the battlefields of our earth to God’s attention. I remember the terribly disfigured and emotionally racked veterans of these most recent wars and I imagine their spirits to be healed. By the time the sun comes up, I am usually very relaxed and able to rest deeply with a sense of peace that is so full and abiding that it brings tears of joy to my eyes. I have no words to describe this. I can only say that I will gladly, fearlessly, welcome the sleeplessness and pain to reach this place of heaven on earth.
I offer you this prayer that has helped me re-imagine my own burdens: “O Lord, sculpt thou me according to thy desires.”

For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it doesn not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not. Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.

- Thomas Merton
New Seeds of Contemplation

I am writing a day late because we spent most of yesterday in airports – cancelled flights, mechanical failures, changing flights – we got to our home sweet home close to 3 am. I barely overheard the news about the most recent shootings in Colorado in the place people are meant to feel at peace. It’s not the first time there have been shootings in a church but it is no less horrifying and no less a violent contradiction to the Peace of Christ.
At that same time that was happening, I was witnessing peace at work. My husband and I were visiting the First Baptist Church in Granville Ohio. It is an annual visit coordinated with his company Christmas party. We love visiting this church because it is a Welcoming and Affirming Church with a long history of Peace and Justice. It is so refreshing to worship in a place where anything can be discussed and all are truly welcome. At the end of the service, I turned around and was astounded to see the man who preached at my installation service in 1989. Bill and Mary Jane Salyers happened to be visiting this church as a part of a visioning process for their own church. We hadn’t see each other in more than a decade. And then I remembered what I had written on this blog about my prejudice against the state of Ohio…..Bill had read the blog and said it didn’t sound like me at all….and there I was in the midst of Ohio among people whom I admire….my eyes were beginning to open.
About 12 hours later, we arrived at the tiny airport in Elmira NY. By chance, two of our fellow flyers had no way of getting home (not a lot of taxis or rental cars at 1 am in the Elmira airport). We had the delightful opportunity to give them a ride and found ourselves getting to know two wonderful men who clearly live their lives in a way that let’s God shine through.
What does this have to do with peace? I belive that the goodness of human beings and the image of God that is present in each of of us is a light that no darkness will ever overcome. We probably won’t see peace on earth unless we are peace to one another.

Forget the past, for it is gone from your domain! Forget the future, for it is beyond your reach! Control the present! Live supremely well now! It will whitewash the dark past, and compel the future to be bright! This is the way of the wise. – Paramahansa Yogananda

Many churches in this area of Ohio where I am today, as well as the area of NY state where I live, have the phrase “Jesus Saves” written bright red letters somewhere on their edifice. This always annoys me, not because I disagree or want to hide from this truth but because the words are code language understood only from the inside – inside that particular church as well as inside of the experience of Jesus Christ as savior. It’s a language from another era that doesn’t quite compute. It begs the question – what exactly is Jesus saving? In a capitalist society, the society at large might wonder if its in a bank or in stocks and bonds!

Indeed, we do need a savior. The quote I’m meditating on above speaks of controlling the present as the way to whitewash the dark past. I can’t do that without a savior. By “savior” I don’t mean one who rescues me from past descisions or changes my circumstances with a magic wand. That view of Christ as Savior is the unique distortion of North American christianity. No, the Savior we need is: the Christ that dissolvesthe delusions, Christ Jesus who cleans the temple of our heart from the lies and self-loathing as he swept the temple in Jerusalem, the child Jesus who frees us to ask questions and to be wise, the infant Jesus who trusts enough to be a vulnerable one of us. But if we look for a rescuer from up on high somewhere outside of this human experience, then we will waste our time on this earth and miss the point of it all.

“When we can see the image of God where we don’t want to see the image of God, then we see with eyes not our own.”

-Richard Rohr

We’ve been traveling today – two short trips on regional jets held together with duct tape. We are in Ohio. I have a prejudice against people in Ohio – I’m know this is irrational and most likely sinful but it is the truth. I’ve driven I-90 several times a year for over 10 years and the people who work in the rest stops have always left me with a bad taste in my mouth…not to mention smelly bathrooms. I know this is not a fair assesment of a state nor the people with in but I have a hard time shaking this pre-judgement. Our trip down here for business reasons did nothing to change this. So today I am asking God to see with eyes that are not my own. It is easy to see God in those who are in need – it pumps my ego to help them which is why it is easier to give than receive. It is easy to see God in people who are beautiful inside and out. It is easy to see God in heroes and saints. But to see God where we are pre-set by our own limitations to see stupidity or rudeness or filth….now that takes the eyes of God. May I see through God’s eyes more than I see through my own. When God looks through my eyes, I hope he lets me have a peek.

I have read that grade school children now dream of being famous rather than being a fireman or ballerina or cowboy or nurse or anything useful. Yesterday we witnessed a life unknown only in death with a wish to be famous. A young man who never quite found a place in life chose to find a place in death in a mall of Christmas shoppers. Like a dead canary in the mine, this may be a clarion call to wake up to our toxic culture.
A friend said to me today “I think we are beginning to see the errors of a culture without a foundation. I feel truly hopeful that our country is waking up and taking stock of what is important. I believe we are no longer willing to be divided into enemy camps of politics and religion.” She had no basis for this hope other than her own new-found faith and intuition. I believe her – she is a wise woman. Besides, her vision is a compelling one.
I was listening to a program on NPR recently (actually, I always listen to NPR not just recently). This program was about the writings of Karl Marx and his admiration for capitalist economy. That in itself surprised me but then I’ve never read a word of Karl Marx. According to this report, he coined a phrase called “destructive creation” which basically says that a capitalist economy requires the constant destruction of the present in order to create a future wealth. Basic to this way of living is the constant tension of everything having to become something else. There is no time for rest. No time for enjoying life as it is.
Perhaps this is the Achilles heel of our society. This constant requirement of change makes it hard to find a place to land, hard to ever just be, hard to find the silent night much less the bright day.
My prayer is that this time is a time of creative destruction of the ways of death giving rise to the way of being the human race, creatures of God’s image designed for one purpose only – to be the divine in human form. Namaste.