![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/599\/2012\/12\/Nativity-Giotto.jpg\" "\\"Nativity")
<\/a><\/p>\n(detail from painting by Giotto di Bernardone,<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nVanderbilt Divinity Library, Art in the Christian Tradition)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nOutside the open window the air is all awash with angels. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nNow they are rising together in calm swells <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nOf halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWith the deep joy of their impersonal breathing; <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nNow they are flying in place, conveying <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nThe terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nAnd staying like white water; and now of a sudden <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nThey swoon down into so rapt a quiet <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nThat nobody seems to be there.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> \u2013from Love Calls Us to the Things of This World<\/span> <\/strong>by Richard Wilbur<\/em><\/p>\nThe reason for the season:<\/p>\n
In northern Europe, where the days get the shortest,\u00a0 solstice\u00a0festivals were kept with holly and mistletoe and evergreen trees and singing and plays and stories about the promise of spring, for thousands of years before Jesus was born.\u00a0 As the people there became Christian, the theologians decided this season was the perfect time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, whose actual birthday no one knew.<\/p>\n
This joy at the returning of the sun, they said, is the same joy we know in the life Jesus brings .\u00a0 And this promise of new life, this hope, is what Jesus gave to us and to everyone.\u00a0 And we understand Jesus, said those early theologians, as filled with the life that creates and keeps on creating the world.\u00a0\u00a0 So he\u2019s not a mere \u2018reason for the season\u2019.\u00a0 His is\u00a0the grace that sustains all living things, born in human form, so that love can bloom.<\/p>\n
His birth, in the midst of the reign of Caesar (who even now is the icon for terrible tyrants everywhere) is as portentious as\u00a0the first day that becomes longer than the day before, and heralds good tidings of life to everyone.<\/p>\n
Even in deep darkness, there is light is at work in the world, warmth growing the roots of things.\u00a0 Politicians may rise and fall, economies wax and wane, but oh!\u00a0 where would we be if the sun did not return to our days?<\/p>\n
This sun, this grace, this mystery, is not won by war or by anyone\u2019s might, is not owned by the rich nor withheld from the homeless, is not dependent on whether you are naughty or nice.\u00a0 It is not just for Christians, but is equally there for Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and people of no faith at all.\u00a0 Corporations can\u2019t by it, market it, exploit it.\u00a0 It does not set limits on who can be loved, and by whom, and how much.\u00a0 It is the hinge on which this world relies.<\/p>\n
The magnificent free gift, to which Christmas calls us, given in God\u2019s good time, is so hard to celebrate, rather than the competitive, earned, won, fought for, power filled aspects of life in which we immerse ourselves.\u00a0\u00a0 We are invited to become children of this light.\u00a0 Christmas, like the solstice, is so humble you might miss it, no longer than a minute in visibility, but is\u00a0the harbinger of all the life of the world.<\/p>\n
Jesus, like the sun, \u00a0is never extinguished.\u00a0 His light shines in the darkness.\u00a0\u00a0 And the darkness, according to the gospel, does not overcome it.\u00a0 Truly the air is awash with angels.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christmas Eve (detail from painting by Giotto di Bernardone, Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Art in the Christian Tradition) Outside the open window the air is all awash with angels. Now they are rising together in calm swells Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing; Now they are flying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bites"],"yoast_head":"\n
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