Christmas Tide!

Merry Christ's Mass!

Eleventh Day of Christmas

January 5
Realization of self leads to the choice to be taken, blessed, broken and shared – by our Beloved spouse, our family, our work, our ministry, ourselves. This is the eleventh gift of Christmas – the penetrating mirror that shows us ourselves as only a harrowing journey can upon reflection from the warm safety of a welcoming inn. Having lost ourselves, we find ourselves and realize there is safety only in abandonment. We come to realize we are holy fools striving to live out our unique aspect of divinity. We learn to laugh at ourselves and make merry, for as goofy as we are, we are cherished and loved and have a divine expression to whisper loudly through the living of our lives. Merry Christmas, fools!
Patrick

Tenth Day of Christmas

January 4
Having entered the land of despair, embraced it, placed it at the foot of the cross, witnessed it and ourselves transformed so that we see others as God intended them to be, set our priorities through right relationship discovered through grit and sabbath we become more and more capable of experiencing delight in the world around us. The everyday ordinary somehow becomes the holy extraordinary. Rather, we recognize the holy extraordinary as having always been there. This is the incarnation. Emmanuel, God is with us. This is the tenth gift of Christmas – seeing wonderment in all about us. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Ninth Day of Christmas

January 3
Sabbath. A day of rest. The key to creating and maintaining right relationship. One day a week set aside for nothing other than entering into relationship with those closest to us. It makes no difference that we’re busy and have no time for a whole day without anything scheduled – we don’t have time not to. Here’s why. When one day is set aside with nothing planned, the purpose and proper proportion of the doings of the rest of the week become clear. Not right away. Over time. Get out your calendars right now. Decide on a day of the week that works for you. Cross it through for the next three months, rescheduling or canceling anything in the way. Live it for three months – discover what it is. Keep it sacred and the rest of your week will become sacred also. This is the ninth gift of Christmas and the key to right relationship. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Eighth Day of Christmas

January 2
Having emerged from the depths of despair, we yearn to help others. Yet afore we can minister outward we must first and always see to our primary vocation – marriage. Our first responsibility is always to our Beloved spouse and our children. Our Beloved spouse and the love we share (children, in part) are the eighth gift of Christmas. Our work and ministry mean nothing if they create ministerial widows, widowers, and orphans. Only by seeking the depths of right relationship with our Beloved can we have any idea what it ought to look like in serving others. There is a hierarchy of service: Spouse and family, work, then ministry. Right relationship must be seen to in that order of priority. Society tends to fall short in its support of these priorities and they must be fought for, as is required, for right relationship. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Seventh Day of Christmas

January 1
I’m not convinced we ever truly leave the land of despair once we’ve been there. But the very fact that we’ve been there prepares us to minister to others. For it was someone else who showed us the way out. We couldn’t find it on our own. They found us and just by being with us they gave us hope. They walked with us through the carnage, acknowledged the horror of it all and yet still had that spark about them, unquenchable. They somehow knew victory was already won, that life is stronger than death, and hope conquers despair. And they gave that spark to us afore they departed. They showed us the power of community. We do not journey alone. They showed us the power of hope. They showed us how to see with God’s eyes. For what in despair appears naught but caked mud and clotted blood is, in reality, the embodiment of God infused into all of creation and just slightly covered by our inhumanity. Our humanity awaits underneath. And despair no longer holds any power over us. The seventh gift of Christmas is seeing all creation, particularly all people, as what God created them to be rather than just what they’ve thus far chosen to be. Merry Christmas!

Sixth Day of Christmas

December 31
Whatever caused us to enter despair, the specific circumstances which gave us our ticket beyond the comfortable and known, something is certain – we feel helpless, and rightly so, in the face of such atrocity. How can we possibly go on? How can we ever see beauty in the world again? What we have seen has revealed to us just how tainted the world really is. We are right. We cannot stand alone in the face of such injustice. No one asks us to, except our own false ego. Here, at our realization of helplessness against the tide, is where we give up. We die. Rather, our false self dies and we are left with the person God created us to be. Sounds so simple, so “Oh, I’ve done that now, let’s move on.” It’s not. It’s painful and cyclical as we spiral ever upward and deepward on our journey. And every time it reminds us more fully how much we need the cross. The cross is our sixth gift of Christmas, for at its feet we place our failings and inadequacy and they are transubstantiated into gifts of community and hope. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Fifth Day of Christmas

December 30
Despair comes when the mind can no longer martial into order and sense the absurd grotesqueness about it. When the mind does thus feel, as it is doomed to, for it was never designed to grasp the infinite, it is the heart that must come to our aid. While the mind’s gift is the ordering of chaos, collecting of knowledge and setting into expression and memory our experiences, it is the heart that embraces the infinite, enters the mystical. The heart needs no understanding; it sees what is beyond understanding and knowing. It accepts the mystery and enters into the experience and shows us more than we’ve ever imagined existed. Then the mind’s simple job is to somehow interact with the ungraspable and inexpressible and find expression for it. Herein lies our hope when despair swallows us down – the heart is the fifth gift of Christmas for it helps us explore the land of darkness and despair and find Jesus there, ministering to those abandoned and lost, including ourselves. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Fourth Day of Christmas

Fourth Day of Christmas – December 29
At some point in our journey we each enter into the depths of despair because of humanity’s lack of humanity. We’ve only to briefly examine our history as a Church or a nation to see the hypocrisy. Or perhaps we find it closer to home. If we are to become fully human we have to enter into this despair. Not just see it intellectually, not merely acknowledge our inhumanity. We have to, at some point, experience it so personally that we intimately feel both its victim and perpetrator. We have to lose sight of hope. This is the fourth gift of Christmas – despair at humanity’s inhumanity to humanity. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Third Day of Christmas

December 28
If everyone is due the same core dignity I am, why don’t others treat them with dignity? Why don’t they treat themselves with dignity? Why don’t I? Do I even treat myself with the dignity I deserve as a unique expression of God? No. Jesus and Mary are the only people who treated themselves and every person they met with the dignity they deserved. This is how we are to act if we wish to live up to our humanity. This is the third gift of Christmas, Jesus and Mary have shown us how to do what we didn’t realize we needed to do, let alone believed possible, to become fully human – the golden rule. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Second Day of Christmas

December 27
The reality that I am a unique expression of God means I have an irremovable holiness – dignity. I am irreplaceable and because of this I deserve to be treated in certain ways. So does everyone else. It is not easy to realize the depth of my value, but when I do there is an incredible “A-ha!” Now I have to expand my view to see that every person I meet has the same depth of value for the exact same reason I do – their uniqueness as an expression of God. God’s ironic grin is impressive – our uniqueness binds us together as possessing the same core dignity. This is the second gift of Christmas; everyone’s uniqueness makes them just as valuable as I am. So much for my big head. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

First Day of Christmas

December 26
Did God really need to enter the world? Clearly not. Omnipotence leaves all options open. So why take the hardest road to redemption? Why not the scrap heap for humanity followed by the drawing board? A second edition would seem the way to go. But it wasn’t. Each of us is a unique expression of God – not expressed again ever or anywhere. Each of us contains a piece of God unique and irreplaceable. Each of us has the capacity through grace to choose to live out our unique divinity just as Jesus did. God chose to enter the world as one of us to show us our true potential, no matter the cost. Our divinely human potential is the first gift of Christmas. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Merry ChristmasTide

Christmas Day – December 25

Today begins the Christmas Tide. Tomorrow is the first of the Twelve Days of Christmas. You might think it was today. Not so I say. Today is Christmas – all twelve days in one go. Beginning tomorrow, we get to unwrap them, savor them, and be challenged by them. The gift of this series is exactly that, we get to celebrate the whole season of Christmas, which goes through Epiphany on January 6. There is one letter per day for you to read aloud together some sacred time each morning of Christmas. On these I must insist: together, aloud, in the morning. My prayer for us is that we may enter into a deeper, broader experience and understanding of Christmas. But that all begins tomorrow. Today is Christmas, a day of wondrous enchantment and gift. Experience and enjoy! Merry Christmas!

Note: I wrote this series on the ChristmasTide for the deacon candidate couples who were in formation when I became disabled and could no longer be part of their formation team. Enjoy.

Love and Blessings for a very Merry ChristmasTide!
Patrick