{"id":48433,"date":"2024-12-25T09:58:53","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T17:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?p=48433"},"modified":"2024-12-25T09:58:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T17:58:53","slug":"a-zen-appreciation-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2024\/12\/a-zen-appreciation-of-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"A Zen appreciation of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2024\/12\/Martin_Luthers_Christmas_Tree.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-48436\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2024\/12\/Martin_Luthers_Christmas_Tree.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"512\"><\/a><br>\nI preached this reflection on the nature of Christmas two years ago at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Some friends have taken to reposting this reflection on social media. At first I was a little surprised. Then I watched it for the first time in those two years. And I thought I might join in\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ph7xzxSX-Jc?si=dPTrTT3m_tCpHb9y\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>The image is from Sartain\u2019s Magazine, circa 1860. A creative imagining of Martin Luther and family at Christmas\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I preached this reflection on the nature of Christmas two years ago at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. Some friends have taken to reposting this reflection on social media. At first I was a little surprised. Then I watched it for the first time in those two years. And I thought I might [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":48436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4182,31],"tags":[5593],"class_list":["post-48433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity-and-buddhism","category-christmas","tag-a-zen-christmas-sermon"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Zen Unitarian Universalist read on Christmas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A consideration of what Christmas might look like for the spiritual seeker. 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