December 2014

Theme: Christmas

                                                                                              Photo by J.L Field

Reflection for Christmas Eve

The Rev. Craig M. Nowak

     Angels appearing in the sky…shepherds setting aside their daily routine to go and see a newborn baby… a star that moves in the sky…and wise men who follow it and bring gifts to a child born in a manger…a young woman...a virgin accepting on faith the message of a visiting angel that she will bear a child and her bewildered partner going along with it all.

     No gift placed under any tree or inside any stocking on Christmas, no matter how unexpected or hard won, could engender such a sense of magic and surprise… hope and wonder as the story of Jesus’ birth as imagined in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  

     Perhaps this is why, each year, on this night we join with the seers, saints, and sinners of ages past, to retell the Christmas story… It is a story perhaps intentionally hard to believe but one that nonetheless reveals to us an undeniable truth and even miracle…that the birth of an infant, an infant who would grow into the Jesus remembered in the Gospels…or “Good News”, forever changed the world.  

     Perhaps even more unbelievable…yet no less a truth and miracle is that the same is true of our own birth…whether we’re speaking of our actual physical birth or the ways in which we are reborn throughout our lives…  

     Indeed, the birth, life, and ministry of Jesus speaks to this truth…of a need to prepare for and celebrate the birth of hope…to be willing to be reborn…to open oneself, to make oneself vulnerable to a change of heart and mind… trusting the promise that when we do so, the world will never be the same.  It is a message too easily forgotten in the hyper activity of our commercialized celebrations and too easily dismissed in the face the brutality, suffering, and desperation so prevalent in the world and our own hearts. 

     And yet…we return as if by invitation, to hear…to imagine and relive…to celebrate… a story with angels, shepherds, and wisemen… and a young couple and the newborn baby.  Christmas is indeed an invitation…an invitation to journey to that place within ourselves where the hope and promise of new life and a new way of living can be born again and again and again…that the work of Christmas can begin anew…to heal the wounds of generations…to bind up the broken…to embrace the forgotten, the poor, the sick, the lonely, the imprisoned, the marginalized, and the despised.

     It is the promise spoken of by the prophet Isaiah...“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.  For unto us a child is born.”

     And so it is again this night…a great light shines once again and hope is born anew for us...for all people.

     Birth, rebirth… miracles as messy and scary as they are joyous and hopeful…This is the reality…the magic…the truth that lives on in the Christmas story…

     Amen and Merry Christmas

December 2014

To Be, or Not to Be 

(A Reflection)

A number of years ago while shopping at a mall during the Christmas rush I suddenly found myself asking, “What am I doing here?”  I was tired, my mind was racing, and I still had more shopping to do.  I looked around and before my eyes was a vast sea of people rushing around, bumping into each other, and grabbing things off shelves and racks.  As I stood there watching it all another question emerged, “What are we doing here?” 

Now, depending on your disposition, you may be upset or relieved that I’m not about to launch into a diatribe on the “evils” of consumerism.  I understand enough about economics and human nature to know that such imperious rants serve little purpose. Besides, our admittedly ravenous consumerism is, as I see it, a symptom not the cause of larger problems facing our world.  

One of those problems is alluded to in the question, “What are we doing here?”  And at this point we’ve moved beyond the mall, the question truly is, What are we doing here...what is this life we have, or have been given, all about?  Do we care?  

As a culture, we often seem to be surface dwellers when it comes to life. This is especially evident in our tendency to deny the reality of aging and death through our worship of youth.  This says to me that we believe life carries meaning but at the same time it reveals we perhaps don’t want to delve too deeply into its meaning.  Maybe we’re afraid of what we’ll find?   It’s perfectly natural, and indeed, even wise at times, to be leery of the unknown, but when it comes to life, we short change ourselves by avoiding engagement with it.

One of the more common ways we seek to avoid engagement with things or situations we’re afraid of is to do something to distract ourselves and our mind.   Pull out your calendar.  It is full?  What’s your “to do” list look like?  If your day planner, appointment book, or just your mental tally of things to do is full, you’re not alone.  You have joined the ranks of the human “doing.” Human “beings” have become passé.  The human “doing” is the creation of a hurry up to keep up world.  It’s a busy place, so busy in fact that few have time to stop and think or…to just “be” 

I once heard the Dalai Lama refer to busyness as a form of laziness. His words speak a difficult truth to us, especially in the United States, where to do nothing is often taken to be nothing.  Yet if we stay with those words a little longer, their wisdom slowly rises to the surface.  The words are not intended to condemn our actions; they are not an unrealistic call to abandon work, family, and friends, but an invitation to awaken to a deeper life, a life that dwells below all the surface distractions with which we fill our days.  They remind us that our constant doing denies us the breathing room of perspective, increases our anxiety, and robs us of time with ourselves and loved ones, making life seem hollow.  Jesus invited his followers to this deeper life as well.  “Consider the ravens…consider the lilies,” he said, exhorting them to discover, “life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.”  And indeed life is more, much more than running oneself ragged in a rush to get a to do list done; something I, as a spouse, intern minister, and student have to remind myself every day and am reminded of when I do pause to consider the lilies…to just be.

Just be.  This is a hard message to take in during a season known for increasing our sense of urgency and drive to get things done “in time” for the holidays.  But before it was a season where people rushed around to do, it was a season calling people to be…and in being to awaken to that which gives life depth and meaning.  We can’t respond to this call when our lives are filled with contrast distractions.  This season when what we need most is what is most hard to find I invite you to join me in making a promise to yourself and those around you, to find some time, any time, to pause from doing and just be and catch a glimpse, a taste of the deeper life we’re called to engage and live.  

Blessings and peace.

Rev. Craig