A
Reflection for Christmas Eve All Saints’ Church, Southern
Shores, NC December 24, 2015 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
Preparing
for Christmas
Each
worship service I post a question for meditation for members of the
congregation as they prepare to enter into a sacred time and space. I
do it because I need to center myself, and I make the assumption that
there are many other people like me who have been rushing around and
whose minds are filled with all sorts of things chattering away
inside our skulls.
When
I was a therapist, the hardest time I had was when I was running
behind and had to begin seeing a client without being able to reflect
on the person that I had just met with. I wanted to be able to write
down a summary of initial reactions so that I could walk away from
the session without the client “infecting” the next session. I
also needed 5 minutes to begin what was called “Reflecting on
Counter-Transference”, which meant that I had to understand how I
had been affected by the person, what part of my pathology was being
hooked, so that I would not carry that into the next client’s
session. The client was paying a lot of money for the time and I
would be cheating them if I did not give them my full attention.
But
centering myself is important for other parts of my life. When I
started dating Pat, she lived in Roanoke, VA and I was living in
Lynchburg, 50 miles away. The drive over gave me a chance to put
aside all of the “my church” work so I could pay attention to the
time we would have together that afternoon or evening. Later on in
our marriage, I was working at another church and living in the
Rectory next door, and without having the time for decompression and
meditation, I found that I was bringing the church work toxins home
with me.
The
suggested question for tonight in the bulletin is “How have you
prepared for the coming of Christ into your life on Christmas?” I
know that you have done a lot of decorating, finished the shopping,
arranged for a bunch of food, got the clothes ready, but how have you
prepared your soul for the full awareness that the God of all
creation poured Godself out to become human so that we might never
doubt that living with God, or what we call “Heaven”, begins here
and now?
This
meditation question opens up a whole series of other questions. Let
me share my further questions and see if they might apply to you.
What
part of “Peace On Earth” am I able to live into?
What
“hopes and fears of all the years are met in” me tonight?
Are
there some people for whom I need to pray?
Is
there some one person I need to forgive - especially if they don’t
deserve it - because Emmanuel, God with us, is a gift of grace and,
despite what they say of Santa Claus, the best gifts come out of
unearned love, not from calculated reward.
Do
I come with awe of what God is doing in the present moment with hope
for the future of an even closer relationship, or do I come with an
escape of nostalgia for the past?
Have
I stepped outside of my own ego and touched the soul of another?
Am
I so focused in on how this service is going that I forget to sing
with the angels?
Preparing
For Christmas
Plastic
on the charge card reforming
melting
into solid but is that enough?
Does
that completely put on the cuff,
is
there even more Santa performing?
Am
I longing for this whole warming
of
my soul or is it just a kind of bluff;
hopes
that deadness might off slough,
so
that angels might come a swarming?
Angels
come anyway, even ear unheard
songs
bouncing off deep soul’s tympani,
beyond
filling full till the day Epiphany
turns
to reformed theatre of the absurd,
comedy
of life living into down upside
hinting
heaven can now be to us allied.
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