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!