Christmas is near. I suppose since I’m one of those horizon types, the hits and misses of 2024 have been washing over me. I can’t help but reflect on the past year then dream and scheme for the one coming.
Whispers Under the Noise
For me, this time of sacred reflection has a fullness that can even feel oppressively heavy. It is perhaps why I need so often to notice the wonder and delicacy of snowflakes. To steal away into the quiet, into the spaciousness of contemplation.
Not into my head where anxieties and dreams swirl, but into my heart. These whispers under noise bring me back to my senses, back to life.
I’m sure you are more settled during these holy days than I am. I say this because my whole life through, I have watched others come alive this time of year.
Even my earliest memories of Christmastime include mysterious sadness I could never name or explain. It’s easy to dismiss it as grinchy, but it’s oh so much more.
So I pray fervently in this season to embody the peace I so desire to come.
I pray that somehow mercy would find its way to the poor and to every broken life longing to heal. That gentle comforts might strengthen and soothe the weary and move the powerful among us to embody grace.
If you are living under a dark cloud of uncertainty or anxiety, I pray that light will pierce it and reveal a secret way.
I haven’t found firm certainties or answers for which my heart longs; I am only awed by how Truth comes near, abiding and sustaining me in the questions.
Is it really solid answers we desire?
Or does a wise part of us acknowledge how the true nature of things is evolution, change, and flow?
What lies within this flow if not Love and goodness? Oh that I might align and conspire with Love in fresh ways now and forever.
Oh that we would all hear the whispered echoes of Christmas blessing, reminding us it is okay to sense we are not enough, not equipped for our trials. Because we are rich with divine indwelling, animating us and joining us in the conspiracy of Love.
I honestly don’t know much at all. But the whispers under holiday noise somehow guide me away from modern media messages shouting PROTECT or PREVENT HARM AT ALL COSTS and toward Mary: let it be done to me.
In a sense, for me personally, a life of faith has little to do with beliefs, books, and stories. Nor is it simply experience and presence. I’m beginning to wonder if I have always lumped faith with transformation in a transactional way (more faith = more transformation) yet miscalculated what “more transformation” and the before/after resembles. Maybe the “after” is actually humble, weary, wobbly, and weak. (Seems plausible if we’re living in an upside down kingdom.)
Have I always imagined spiritual transformation looks like increased spiritual stamina and a steadfast certainty?
“Let it be done to me” is a BOLD EMPTYING PRAYER and a HUMBLE DESIRE to be filled with what is holy.
Wherever this finds you, I hope these imperfect words stir something new in your soul. As I type, I am beaming every bit of mercy from my being into the white spaces here.
Has it been a rough year? If cynicism or hopelessness grows, here is a moment to seek the grace for relief.
My own soul grows tender as I consider our capacity to become living vessels of lifegiving hope, to become Bethlehem where something new may be born.
WHERE WILL THE LIGHT COME FROM? The government? A preacher in the pulpit? The next cure?
How could healing possibly find our lovely planet where there is so much to mend?
I have no answers. This is why I turn to the chronically ill sugar plum fairy in the mirror and challenge her to become the healing she seeks. This is why I pray…
Holy, Holy Maker of things lovely, of things good, fill this heart close to breaking with the sacred light of You.
Gentle Shepherd, oh, keeper of my soul, be near your lamb!
May I rise with you, Infinite Love, to overcome all hate and confusion in my heart.
Undo my selfishness and guide my choices so I might follow paths leading to the everlasting.
I pray we will draw strength not from certainty or security…
but from the infinite depths of your divine mystery.
Thank you for dwelling in all the diversity of your creation.
Thank you for blessings we see and don’t see.
Holy Light, warm the cold, bitter, and lonely corners of our souls.
Love is Christmas
Would love to hear from you even if (and maybe especially if) you have a different perspective at Christmas or on your journey – even a smiley face in the comment section is a gift to this blog.
Peace to you right where you are.
-michele
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