Join us for Discussion Group next Sunday after Church…
It’s art day today. You are welcome to create your “art” with your imagination or on paper if you like. You may visualize it now and create it later.
Place, or visualize, a dot at the center of a piece of paper. Make it pretty if you like. In just the simple act of making a dot, we already realize our uniqueness. Our dots may be completely different…big, small, thick, thin, precise, or not…
The dot represents God (the Universe, Grace, the divine, spirit—call it what you like). Perhaps there are a zillion or more “dots” that are the One Same. Separate and not separate. Your own dot and the dot of the neighbor next to you in the pew. The dot of the neighbor down the street or across town.
Next, make a circle around the dot. That circle represents you. Or, in the story of today, that’s the Holy Family coming to a stable in Bethlehem. Perhaps Jesus is part of the circle. Perhaps Mary and Joseph are the ring around the dot who is Jesus. PAUSE
Sometimes, we are visual people and creative. To see it as “art” is enlightening. Sometimes, it’s the story that enlightens us. Sometimes it’s the song. Or the puzzle with all the answers and always none.
Something to remember when you look at your dot and circle: we get into trouble when we forget and begin to think that we are at the center. We think of ourselves as the “dot”. It happens. We are a part of the center around the dot, everyone else is part of their own center around the dot, but we are not the center. There is something bigger there. Bigger than us and yet a part of us. Can you feel that place? The dot and the circle…connected? PAUSE
Next, take a yellow highlighter (or a green one or blue one or orange one—or paint it!) and use it to encircle the circle. Make a halo around the circle. Give it light. Make it special.
We now have a dot, a circle, and a halo.
This is the Moment now. God and the Holy Family. God and us. Yes, us. We aren’t the center dot, but never forget our part in the story. It’s easy to think this is about other people and it’s other people’s work. This is all about special people and we just have to believe. We are more important than that. The story is also about us and our role in God’s work and world.
We can easily get bogged down in a bigger story. We look for answers to be “right”, or the “right” ways, when there is no “right”. We can get lost when we’re looking for facts in Mystery and faith. Like life, it’s not so black and white or easy. As Rose says in Titanic of Picasso’s paintings: there’s truth, but no logic. This is the heart of it all. Look to the heart…not the head. There’s Truth…even if there is no logic. And Truth is always found in the heart, not the head (although, thinking things through as we get to the heart is very helpful…this isn’t permission to stop thinking or forget logic or dismiss what is, in fact, fact in the world).
Despite its challenges, it’s perfect that we have Advent entangled in Christmas Eve this year. There’s truth, but no logic. There is the waiting and the arrival all at the same time this year. It’s all, everything, entangled in then, now, and to come. In them, us, and those to come.
This image is a Moment. This moment. Our moment. Think of it as a big Yes!. Yes to life. Yes to possibility. Yes to Mystery. Yes to something bigger in and of life.
The story up until now holds the seed of all the story. It is the story. But that’s a story for another day or a seed for you to ponder for now.
God (whatever that is, don’t get bogged down and stuck—let God arrive however) is asking and there is a choice and a yes and that first circle is born. The Holy Family as the first circle answering yes to God. Us as the first circling answering yes to Grace. New beginning. New life. A unique opportunity toward…
Advent…let’s get back to our “art”. Now, add lines to your dot and circle. Either a full cross with the center point touching the center dot or four lines coming out from four points of the circle. This is where we add the four points, or cross bars, of Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. Advent.
That is also this Moment. The ask to bear the light, to bear witness to the light, to carry the light…the Yes! to all of it. The Yes to Jesus being born in a manger and being born in our hearts. The Yes! to what matters most!
The dot and the circle brings us into relationship with God and what is asked of us. Or perhaps, what we ask of God for us to do for and in this world. PAUSE. Out of that ask and Yes!, there is a first circle and a new beginning is born, encircled with a halo of light.
The cross bars are here to remind that what matters most is hope, peace, joy, and love. It’s so easy to get lost along the way, but these cross bars reorient us when our “excuses” and “reasons” get in the way. Truth, but no logic: there are no excuses or reasons away from hope, peace, joy, and love—those things that take deep, raw Courage. There’s no:
Peace, but…
Hope, but…
Love, except…
Joy, except…
The buts and excepts are oh so easy…(watch them play out in your own life and ask yourself some deeper, raw questions…). All of those buts and excepts always take us away from the center…even if they are “right”. PAUSE (Look for fear, fear is almost always as play in the buts and excepts)
We have the cross bars of hope, love, peace, and joy. These are the things that orient us back to the center point. To Grace. No exceptions…and it’s not easy. We will stray, but we can always come back when we have our compass.
We are also not alone. Perhaps the first circle, with its halo, is a double line of you and yours. Those close to you that also help orient you. Our family, our kin…or perhaps it’s our soul friends. Our sisters and brothers. “Family” in all the ways that “family” shows up. We’ve all been here long enough to know that “family” doesn’t always look like Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus. It looks delightfully unique and special to each of us. It is truly a special piece of Grace when we let Love come in in all the ways.
Look, there are also the cattle lowing. We walk each Friday and there is something tender and wise in the eyes of a cow. PAUSE. Maybe add some cows to your art and some other animals. We are part of a whole world, a whole garden. We are surrounded by shepherds and innkeepers. Fellow travelers on the journey. Extended family. Strangers.
Angels.
Let a whole world unfold in your own unique picture. What other rings encircle you as your picture unfolds? Who are the cows and the innkeepers, the fellow travelers, the wise men, the angels, the strangers? Forget the critiques and comparisons that distract you from what matter mosts. Your picture is perfect, exactly as it is.
What helps orient you back to the center? Back to the dot? Through the circles and along the lines of hope, peace, joy, and love?
See the holy family. See the still point Moment of here and now. The pause of the Brilliance and the new beginning yet again. It’s Beautiful. PAUSE
See yourself and your Yes! to God in this Moment. Perhaps it is your own Ask of God: God, what is my Call toward love and peace in this moment of the world? God, what is my call toward joy and hope in this moment in the world? Make the choice to be the one that answers, especially when it’s the hardest to find hope, peace, love, and joy.
Make the choice to bear the light in the darkness and to fuel the lights when they are overcome by shadows.
Make the choice to walk with footsteps gentle when the rest of the world seems to stomp and trample and run.
Make the choice to give generously when the rest of the world seems to be hoarding more than they need.
Make the choice to talk softly when the rest of the world seems to be screaming.
Make the choice to seek joy where others seem only to see madness and fury.
Make the choice to see a world of Goodness, when it’s all too easy to see a world of terrible (Hint for a new year: turn off the news at least for a time and read an uplifting book).
Be the Light Bearer in every season of darkness…
What is your call and response and choice in this moment of new beginnings, in this Pause of Birth?
Merry Christmas and Happy Everything to you and yours.
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 