• About
  • Blogs of Fellow Pilgrims

Wondering Pilgrim

~ the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner

Wondering Pilgrim

Tag Archives: Christmas

In Between Times

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Ministry, mission, Personal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christmas, Fullness, grace, John, Word

I’m at work in the church study. It is eerily quiet on a day that would normally be abuzz – the rooms full of people going about their art and craft activities, sharing stories, encouraging, commiserating, inspiring.

This is an “in-between” time – a space of silence affording me time to do a little extra thinking and writing in between the shredding, re-organising and generally tidying things up. I’m looking at the passage set for January 3rd, the final Sunday of Christmas. It’s from the Gospel of John’s prologue and moves on from the piece I wrote on this blog yesterday – see it here.

John’s Christmas story is somewhat understated if one is looking for shepherds and angels and Bethlehem. “Understatement,” however, is hardly the word that comes to mind as one ponders the “Word (Reality, Wisdom, Ground of Being) become flesh” and dwelling amongst us.

“From his fullness we have received grace upon grace.” So John’s community reflects almost 100 years after the precipitating event. No trite piety here. The writer reflects a reality that is true to a community that has endured expulsion, persecution, and martyrdom that is familiar to many fleeing the Middle East today. “Fullness” and “grace” are words that still sprinkle the conversation of Orthodox Christians that have been forced from their ancient homelands.

It seems these “in-between” times are not just fallow paddocks where nothing much is happening. Beneath the soil is a lot of activity. “Fullness” and “grace” are being nurtured and are ready to flourish for those prepared to dig around and get their hands dirty.

This is where Christmas gets real!

The twelfth day of Christmas… Epiphany!

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Spirituality

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Epiphany, magi

Magi by Brian Whelan, This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Magi by Brian Whelan, This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Tradition usually has the visit of the magi with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh on the final day of Christmas, heralding the season of Epiphany, the celebration of a manifestation, that in Jesus, all that needs to be known about God is revealed. The gifts of these 12 days comprise this epiphany. The challenge now is for someone to set them to the metre and music of the familiar “Partridge in a Pear Tree” carol which has its own debated symbolism.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, God gave humanity:
12 Epiphany
11 Auld Lang Syne – connection
10 Word dwells among us
9 Deep wisdom
8 Fresh start
7 Visionary hope
6 Cosmic outlook
5 Unconstrained love
4 Thankful hearts
3 Wedding clothes
2 Completion
1….and peace on earth to all.

Now there’s a start!

On the eleventh day of Christmas … Auld Lang Syne

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Auld Lang Syne, Christmas, connection, New Year

The gift of connection. The final days of Christmas coincide with New Year celebrations and reflections. As the calendar turns over to the new year, Robert Burn’s Auld Lang Syne rings out through the gathered crowds. It is a song of connection and Christmas is about God’s ultimate gift of connection in dwelling amongst us in Jesus of Nazareth, who became known as the Christ for this very fact.

Scotland has sent an invitation to the world to join them in a universal singing of Auld Lang Syne. You can see details here. Our congregation decided, in the name of connection, to join in, and they are sending this video clip to (hopefully) be included.

The tenth day of Christmas… Word dwells amongst us

03 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Spirituality

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christmas, incarnation, Logos, Word made flesh

Nativity

“Adoration of the Shepherds” by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622, Public Domain

Sometimes a gift takes more than one day to unwrap, so we continue to reflect on the implications of deep Wisdom (the Word) taking on flesh in Jesus of Nazareth and dwelling in our midst. A gift is not always well received – look at how busy the “Returns” counter is at the Boxing Day sales. John’s Gospel tells us “… the world did not know him…” and “… his own people did not accept him… ”

Unwrap and engage the gift completely and – voila! – “… to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God…”

That’s what happens when the Word dwells among us and we pay attention!

On the ninth day of Christmas – Deep Wisdom

02 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Spirituality

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christmas, Logos, Sophia, wisdom

Personification of wisdom (in Greek, Σοφία or Sophia) at the Celsus Library in Ephesus, Turkey. photo by Radomil talk 21:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Personification of wisdom (in Greek, Σοφία or Sophia) at the Celsus Library in Ephesus, Turkey. photo by Radomil talk 21:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There is a deep wisdom behind the universe. It is beyond knowledge – knowing how things work. It is beyond mysticism – trusting how things work. Yet it involves and transcends both. In the Jewish and Christian traditions, this deep wisdom has a central focus. Hebrew tradition personifies wisdom as a woman practical and present at Creation, most famously portrayed in Proverbs 8. The epiphany of wisdom here  earthy, pragmatic and full of common sense. She became known in the Greek tradition as Sophia, and there is a strong strand in traditional Christianity alluding to the femininity of Wisdom.

John’s Gospel reflects its Hellenistic context. Here the more abstract term Logos – (reason) comes into play. It is the instrument through which the universe comes into being and is identified as being both with/of God and, indeed, God as well. The Logos took flesh and is recognisable in Jesus of Nazareth. Hence, Jesus is revered as the Word, the wisdom, of God. Both Sophia and Logos refer us to the deep Wisdom behind all things, and they are today’s gift.

On the eighth day of Christmas … a fresh start

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal, Spirituality

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christmas, Ecclesiastes, New Year, Peter Seeger, Seasons, Turn

Why is New Year’s Day so evocative of lists to improve and enhance our personal and communal living? Life is comprised of cycles, and somehow, deeply embedded in our collective psyche, a New Year (always capitalised!) marks that part of the cycle where we take a deep breath and start all over again. The gift of Christmas’s eighth day underlines this in the text from Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 with its sage exhortation to attend to the seasons and not sweat the small stuff! And if you’re not inclined to look it up, you can hear the late Peter Seeger, age 93, get his audience to help him pump it out.

 

On the seventh day of Christmas… hope that envisions a new heaven and a new earth.

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Spirituality

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

#lovemakesaway, Christmas, hope, revelation

800px-Justice_statueThis morning another eight Christian leaders face court in Perth on charges of trespass, a result of advocacy for asylum seeker children in the face of political intransigence and obfuscation. A particularly disturbing feature of the incidents of these arrests was the decision by the police, for the first time, to introduce strip-search procedures, evidently designed to intimidate and deter further protests. A year of like protest actions has turned a dark corner. However, those charged would still direct our thoughts to those languishing in detention in the tropical hell-holes of Manus and Nauru, where minors fear for their lives and remain devoid of hope. Christmas has something to do with the climax of the apocalyptic terror in John’s Revelation where a new heaven and a new earth are revealed. Revelation 21:1-6 is replete with prophetic imagery of hope realised. For two millennia, it has sustained the hopes and aspirations for followers of Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, contained for a while in a vulnerable infant. It is the vision and hope of a redeemed society that drives the thrust for mercy and justice behind the #lovemakesaway advocates who stand before our land’s magistrates. Such a hope, such a vision, is a gift of the seventh day of Christmas.

On the sixth day of Christmas – cosmic outlook!

30 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Spirituality

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christmas, cosmic, purpose, unity

Constellation_Fornax,_EXtreme_Deep_FieldImagine being freed of all spatial and temporal limitation! The high fence surrounding our time frame of an allotted threescore and ten (or thereabout) is torn down. Star Trek type transportation effortlessly disassembles and reunites our cells so that, at a word,  we can be present to any place in the universe. We are perennially at the peak of our health and vitality. We are more fulfilled than we can ever have imagined, engaged in the purpose of a loving, sustaining, expanding stance to one another, indeed to all that is.

One can only revert to familiar science fiction memes to express an appreciation of the sacred awareness that is the gift described by the text for the sixth day of Christmas – Ephesians 1:3-14.    Through the coming of Christ, all limiting barriers that separate us from ourselves, others, the Creator and the creation are dissolved. God’s awareness becomes our awareness; God’s purpose becomes our purpose; God’s love becomes our love.

On the fourth day of Christmas… an orientation to praise and thanksgiving.

28 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Africa, Spirituality

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aid, Christmas, gogo, praise, Zimbabwe

WP_001721When visiting one of the rural districts surrounding Zvishavane in the south of Zimbabwe 3 months ago, we were struck by the resilience of those who lived on the parched plots with little easy access to water, healthcare and education for their children. We were exploring a program run by the Zimbabwe churches with whom we partner that assists grandparents caring for grandchildren orphaned mostly by AIDS. Material help with seeds, chickens, goats, consumables and education fees are provided, along with pastoral support.

When one gogo (grandmother) was asked what else she needed, she replied, “The ability to keep praising God!” Her family had been particularly harshly ravaged by illness, failed crops and sheer misfortune. In her wisdom, she perceived a capacity to be positively oriented to the world through her faith to be a true gift.

On the fourth day of Christmas may our gift be that given by this woman – the understanding of a need for a  capacity to praise God for his persistent involvement in our lives, not in ways that are always discernable to us, but emphatically underlined by God’s “riding with us” in Jesus of Nazareth and all who follow his path. Use Psalm 148 for practice!

On the third day of Christmas….clothes!

27 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Spirituality

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christmas, wedding garments

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERANo, not those bargains from the Boxing Day sales. The prophet rhapsodies over gifts of garments representing security, belonging, freedom and hope for the realisation of a vision where all is right with the world. To wear this apparel is to celebrate, as if at a wedding. Something new is beginning and we dress accordingly. Festive garlands, soothing oils and a garden setting complete the picture. The birth of Jesus is the event that triggers recollections of Isaiah’s song: indeed this song is a response that almost immediately follows the prophet’s manifesto read by Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue as he commenced his ministry.

← Older posts

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 240 other followers

Follow Wondering Pilgrim on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • Seventh Day Musings December 31, 2020
  • A Christmas reflection on a Senior Housing Crisis December 20, 2020
  • Rocky Road August 17, 2020
  • She came asking… August 10, 2020
  • Getting wet feet August 3, 2020
  • Economy of abundance July 28, 2020
  • Riddle me July 20, 2020
  • Let it Be July 13, 2020
  • Wasted Words? July 6, 2020
  • But John held up a mirror… June 30, 2020

Gallery

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Archives

  • December 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • September 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • July 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • September 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • May 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×