A Christmas Gift for You
Just a little something from me to you
Christmas is one of my favorite times of year and so I’ve spent most of this month wandering through the Christmas markets in Germany relishing in the wonder of it all. There is something about the lights and the warm cups of gluwein between mittened hands but each market also has some way of telling the story.
Sometimes there are live animals next to wooden cutouts of Mary and Joseph. An empty cradle awaits the newborn babe. Others have elaborate nativity sets behind plexiglass where we can ponder all that may have happened so very long ago on that first Christmas. I notice the details that I’d like to correct. Mary is too old. Jesus has the wrong skin color. This wasn’t the Renaissance and that wasn’t how they dressed. I’m also pretty sure there were not baskets of pretzels given to the newborn babe.
We get the details wrong and some years it is just hard to tell this story at all. It’s a tale to be shared among children led by an aluminum foil star suspended on a string but we are not quite so sure what this story might hold for us now. Rachel Mann names this complexity powerfully in the Christian Century this month.
It is complex but I want there to be space for us all to experience this story and imagine ourselves as “mothers of God” as Meister Eckhart reminded us that “God is always needing to be born.” We all need to play this role somehow, maybe especially now.
I created this little booklet to wander through the twelve days of Christmas to contemplate this possibility in poetry and song. There’s a Spotify playlist and some extra spiritual practices to try and it’s my gift to you. You can download it right here.
I pray something is being born in you this year. Merry Christmas and thank you for sharing in these prayer threads with me.
If you are not yet done with Advent and Christmas, you might enjoy these posts from my archives to make the season linger just a little bit longer.
A Play-Full Advent Retreat
My children are always asking me to play. They long for me to get on the floor and engage with them fully in whatever imaginative world they’ve created. Most of the time I feel like Bluey’s parents are much better parents than I will ever be.
Let This Darkness Be
It is not the most wonderful time of year when so much has gone wrong. We are still a world at war where hate too often seems more powerful love.
