Did you notice?

 

I'm always on the look out for the one who is on the margins of things; the kid who is only at the youth group meeting because her Mom "made" her go, the one who shows up to a gathering alone and keeps looking at his phone because he feels so uncomfortable in the setting where seemingly everybody knows everyone else. I think I am in tune with those folks because for much of my youth, I was those kids...no cell phone, of course, so I would either look at the countour of the table or just sit hoping not to be noticed, seen in my aloneness and awkwardness.

Father Greg Boyle has my new favorite quote: "To notice the notice of God." 

God notices each of us and is so in love with each of us, God, cannot contain the joy and love bursting from God's Divine Self!  I really like that in a God!  Imagine the impact in our lives, our congregations, our communities if this was the message we believed and taught and loved until it was caught!

Christmas is God's big NOTICE EVENT.  Doubt God is love? Feel God is out to get you and is just about to hit the "smite" button when you scroll across God's computer? 

Christmas is God's shout out of LOVE to you, to all, to creation! Did you notice? 

While making my baked pineapple dish (and they say there are no more Christmas miracles) I was listening to NPR and the chaplain being interviewed said, "I believe in a God who smiles at me a lot." ......me too.

Have you noticed this God?  

Merry Christmas!

Let there be light

 

A clergy colleague shared the story of her seven-year old son's first experience of a night baseball game at PNC Park surrounded with the many large stands of lights he commented, "the darkness doen't go down that far."

I loved that story the first time I heard it years ago and in these dark, scary times through which we journey (and we will make it through...) and on this longest night of the year (welcome Winter!) I appreciate it even more and return to it often. 

Perhaps it's the fact of being born and raised in southwestern Pennsylvania where we average only 60 sunshine days a year. I was shocked when I first learned this fact, yet, admit I like the cloudy November days, they are familiar, they are home to me. Please understand, I also really like sunshine!  Bright days of summer are glorious and I am energized by sunny days in winter, the light glistening off the snow.

Light has a constancy to it; a reliability that in the morning the sun will shine. In these uneven and uncertain times, I need that constancy. With today's official start of the winter season, minute by minute light makes a comeback!

Salt and light are two metaphors Jesus used to define his disciples; add a little flavor to your witness, make 'em thirsty for more!  

Be the light;

Bring the light;

Bear the light --- this is the one needed most in this current time when it is easier to just bemoan and quit. Yes, we are scared, angry, troubled, divided.....the perfect time to be who we claim to be --- light, to be the very best version of our disciple selves. Let there be light --- bring it!