Spiritual readings        "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"

December, 2001

 Dec. 4, 2001

 Latin American has an Advent/Christmas tradition called the Posada, where for several days before Christmas, the seeking of hospitality by Joseph and his pregnant Mary is acted out.  There is a deeper sense where Advent is a seeking by God of hospitality in our hearts.  Here is my editing of a little musing on hospitality taken from the book “Self and Salvation: Being Transformed” by David F. Ford.  Concluding a chapter entitled “Enjoyment, responsibility and desire: a hospitable self” he says:

 “Hospitality combines and distinguishes enjoyment and responsibility, it allows for the notes of abundance, celebration and even extravagance and excess…and it counters any tendency to separate body and spirit or to play down corporeality and materiality…..”

 There is a fullness of spirituality captured in Ford’s thinking here, a fullness that may provide a good reference for us in the weeks to come.  How do we cultivate a hospitable self, a self that is open to God first, then to the needs of others?

I hope you all have some kind of Advent devotional help or pattern you use.  In the church we are using a little booklet by Henri J. M. Nouwen entitled “The Lord Is Near” put out by Creative Communications for the Parish, 1564 Fencorp Dr. Fenton, MO 63026-2942.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Dec. 7, 2001

See below for some good Advent links.

 Our Advent 2001 Posada stops at a chapter in the book “Practicing Our Faith,” a collection of essays on Ancient Christian practices and their adoption for today.  One chapter is called “Hospitality” by Ana Maria Pineda, and she describes Las Posadas this way.

 “Every December, Hispanic communities relive in their flesh the Gospel truth that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.”(John 1:14.  She then quotes John 1:10-11 too).  In Las Posadas, they ritually participate in being rejected and being welcomed, in slamming the door on the needy and opening it wide.  They are in this way renewed in the Christian practice of hospitality, the practice of providing a space where the stranger is taken in and known as one who bears gifts.”

 How welcoming are you to strangers?  How willing are you to share the gifts God has given you?  The Advent/Christmas season is as good a time as any to improve our ability to offer hospitality, as well as share our spiritual gifts with others.  May you find the opportunity to do so this day and all the days to come.

Remember this, our former Day of Infamy, as we approach the 3 month mark since our latest day of Infamy.

Grace & peace

Geoff

 Some other Advent links

http://pcusa.org/2001advent            is the Presbyterian Church’s online Advent Calendar.

http://www.whitpresby.org/dec2000_emails.htm         is the page of emails from last December.

Rev. Charles Henderson, located somewhere in New Jersey, has a great amount of helpful material and essays on timely topics.  Try

http://christianity.about.com/library/weekly/aa112800.htm            and look around at what he has.  I especially enjoyed the piece on the Christmas story through the artwork of Albrecht Durer.

 Dec. 11, 2001

 One of the characters in the Posada is Mary.  We Protestants don’t pay enough attention to Mary, to our detriment.  Here are some reflections on Mary by Ron Rolheiser, from his book “The Holy Longing,” Doubleday, 1999.  In talking about the scriptural injunction to pray always he says:

 “How does one do this(pray always)? ….we need pondering in the biblical sense.  To ponder is less a question of intellectually contemplating something as it is of patiently holding it inside of one’s soul, complete with all the tension that brings.  Thus, when Mary stands under the cross of Jesus and watches him die—and there is absolutely nothing she can do to save him or even to protest his innocence and goodness—she is pondering in the biblical sense.  She is carrying a great tension that she is helpless to resolve and must simply live with.  That is what scripture refers to when it tells us that Mary “kept these things in her heart and pondered them.”  (Luke 2:51)

 It is the tension that seems to be a major of the pondering that is talked about here.  Being able to live with such tension is a gift, but one I believe that may be cultivated.  It would take great discipline I expect.  I do not know.  I’m too much of a modern American, too quick to look for resolution to any tension or difficulty in my life.  I find it most difficult to live with painful tension.  This Posada stop encourages me to look for more of that discipline that Mary had.  May it do the same for you.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Dec. 14, 2001

See below for some good Advent links.  I keep adding new ones.  Do you have any??

Our Posada stops today in a Celtic neighborhood.  This Celtic Rune of Hospitality comes from the newsletter “On the Road” put out by San Francisco Theological Seminary/Southern California, from the column by Elizabeth Nordquist.  It makes a great connection between the Latin American Posada tradition and Celtic spirituality.

I saw a stranger today

I put food for him in the eating place

And drink in the dinking-place

And music in the listening place.

In the Holy Name of the Trinity

He blessed myself and my house

My goods and my family.

And the lark said in her warble

Often, often, often

Goes Christ in the stranger’s guise

Oh, oft and oft and oft,

Goes Christ in the Stranger’s guise.

The image of Christ coming to us as a stranger is firmly rooted in our tradition, beginning in Matthew 25:31-46.  That image also plays well during Advent and Christmas, as we look for the coming of Christ, yet we must look with keenly and spiritually tuned eyes.  Who is “The Stranger” in your life?  Are you ready to see Christ in that stranger and all strangers? 

May your Advent and Christmas season be rich in love and the presence of God.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Dec. 18, 2001

Today’s Posada stop is somewhere near Nashville, TN!  Reba McIntyre put out an album some years ago with the song(actually a poem read with guitar playing behind it) called Conrad’s Christmas.  The words fit so well with last Fridays Celtic Rune that I had to send it, in all its length.

It happened one day near Decembers end’, Two neighbors called on an old friend.

And they found his shop so meager and lean, made gay with a thousand bows of green

And Conrad was sitting with face ashine, When he suddenly stopped as he stitched a twine

And he said, old friends at dawn today, When the cock was crowing the night away

The Lord appeared in a dream to me and said “I’m coming your guest to be.”

So I’ve been busy with feet astir, and strewing my shop with branches of fir.

The table is spread and the kettle is shined and over the rafters the holly is twined.

Now I’ll wait for my Lord to appear and listen closely so I’ll hear

His step as he nears my humble place and I’ll open the door and see his face.

So his friends went home and left Conrad alone for this was the happiest day he had known.

For long since his family had passed away and Conrad has spent many a sad Christmas day.

But he know with the Lord as his Christmas guest, this Christmas would be the dearest and best.

So he listened with only joy in his heart and with every sound he would rise with a start,

And looked for the Lord to be at his door, like the vision he’d had a few hours before.

So he ran to the window after hearing a sound, But all he could see on the snow covered ground

Was a shabby beggar whose shoes were torn and all his clothes were ragged and worn.

But Conrad was touched and he went to the door and he said your feet must be frozen and sore.

I have some shoes in my shop for you, and a coat that will keep you warmer too.

So with grateful heart the man went away but Conrad noticed the time of day.

And wondered, what made the Lord so late and how much longer he’d have to wait

When he heart a knock he ran to the door but it was only a stranger once more,

A bent old lady with a shawl of black, with a bundle of kindling packed on her back.

She asked for only a place to rest, but that was reserved for Conrad’s great guest.

But her voice seemed to plead “Don’t send me away, let me rest for a while on Christmas day.”

So Conrad brewed her a cup and told her to sit at the table and sup

But after she left he was filled with dismay, for he saw that the hours were sipping away,

And the lord hadn’t come as he said he would, and Conrad felt that he’d misunderstood,

When out in the stillness he heard a cry, “Please help me and tell me where am I.”

So he opened his friendly door and stood disappointed as twice before.

It was only a child who’d wandered away and was lost from her family on Christmas day.

Again Conrad’s heart was heavy and sad but he knew he should make the child glad.

So he called her in and wiped her tears, and quieted all her childish fears.

Then he led her back to her home once more, but as he entered his own darkened door

He knew the Lord was not coming that day, for the hours of Christmas had passed away.

So he went to his room and knelt down to pray, “Dear lord why did you delay? 

What kept your from coming to call on me, for I wanted so much your face to see.”

When soft in the silence a voice he heard, “Lift up your head for I kept my word.

Three times my shadow crossed your floor and three times I came to your lonely door.

I was the beggar with bruised cold feet and I was the woman you gave something to eat.

I was the child on the homeless street.  Three times I knocked and three times I came in,

And each time I found the warmth of a friend Of all of the gifts love is the best,

And I was honored to be your Christmas guest

Its rather a sappy song as she sings it, but it contains the hospitality of the gospel, so appropriate to the season and our Posada theme.  May you find room in your heart this season to be hospitable to a stranger, seeking the face of Christ in all you meet.

Grace and peace

Geoff

Dec. 21, 2001

See below for some Advent links, with some new additions.

Our Posada stop today is in an African –American neighborhood, somewhere near the Birmingham, Alabama, jail.  Stephen B. Oates has written a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. entitled “Let the Trumpet Sound” and he quotes on pages 223-230 from King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”  I find the implications for a broader concept of hospitality irresistible.

“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states.  I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.  Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly….Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Oates says this letter from the Birmingham Jail “…became a classic in protest literature, the most eloquent and learned expression of the goals and philosophy of the nonviolent movement ever written.”  For the full text, go here and search until you find it. http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/

 How welcome we are to strangers, to those different than ourselves?  Hospitality as a spiritual discipline can be a way of life that reaches into all parts of our lives.  The story of Joseph and Mary seeking hospitality(the Posada festival) is a wonderful image with a different perspective on Christmas than we might associate with.  May that image bless you this season.

Grace & peace

Geoff

 Some other Advent links

http://pcusa.org/2001advent            is the Presbyterian Church’s online Advent Calendar.

http://www.whitpresby.org/dec2000_emails.htm         is the page of emails from last December.

Rev. Charles Henderson, located somewhere in New Jersey, has a great amount of helpful material and essays on timely topics.  Try

http://christianity.about.com/library/weekly/aa112800.htm            and look around at what he has.  I especially enjoyed the piece on the Christmas story through the artwork of Albrecht Durer.  http://christianity.about.com/library/weekly/aatptoohot.htm has a good list of hot books that would make great reading and great gifts.  I’m currently reading Karen Armstrong’s “Battle for God” that is listed there.

www.ltsg.edu a Lutheran Seminary with some nice Advent devotions.

www.forministry.com an American Bible Society link.

Thanks to those who responded to my plea for more links.  We’ll be better organized next year!

 Dec. 24, 2001

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory"

                       The Nativity Window, Ensign Chapel, Whittier Presbyterian Church

  My own Christmas card to you all.  May God bless you as the season turns from Advent to Christmas and may you find the rich abundance of God in Christ, Immanuel, in your life today.

Dec. 28, 2001

 Henry Van Dyke was a Presbyterian Minister and novelist of several generations ago.  Here is one of his writings (a poem?) about “Keeping Christmas.”  My father sent it to me and I found more material about Van Dyke on the internet.  This piece speaks for itself.

There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas Day, and that is KEEPING CHRISTMAS.

Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people and to remember what other people have done for you?

To ignore what the world owes you, and to think about what you owe the world?

To admit that the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life?

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children?

To remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old?

To stop asking how much your friends like you and ask yourself whether you love them enough?

To try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you?

To make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings...with the gate open?

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can KEEP Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that Love

is the strongest thing in the world --

stronger than hate, stronger than death --

and that the blessed Life which began in

Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image

and brightness of Eternal Love?

Then You Can KEEP CHRISTMAS...

May you keep Christmas this day and all the days to come.

Grace & peace

Geoff