Once upon an Advent, I became an Anglican. Year’s end of 1984, to be exact.
Raised Roman Catholic and having spent my early adulthood agnostic, my ex-husband William and I followed breadcrumbs back to church. Not back so much really as forward. Instead of returning to the pews of our youth, we accepted an invitation to attend Immanuel on-the-Hill. (Yes, the other Emmanuel, directly across the street from Virginia Seminary.) Zach, my firstborn son was just three and Colleen was not quite six months
These little children led us to knock on the door of a church – a door we had not darkened for ages. The liturgy was strangely familiar – like a favorite old song but to a different tune. And — singing this new song was a vested woman at the altar! And we got to drink the wine, as well as, eat the bread. What a revelation this was!
Literally, leaving church on my very first Episcopal Sunday, the rector had a proposition for me. Would you like to join the worship planning committee? Not just volunteer to read or be an usher, but to be a lay partner along with the priest planning the services of the coming season?
Having grown up in a tradition, where women were only allowed behind the altar if they had a vacuum cleaner, I was gob smacked! Floored!
Of course, I would love to! Yes!
And I do confess, this committee work helped fulfill a lifelong fantasy of mine – to be cast as Mary in the Christmas concert. The fantasy of every little Roman Catholic girl (and every little Protestant girl, too, I imagine!)
And alas, it came to pass for me this Advent of 1984. Recently pregnant and obviously not a virgin, at long last I had snagged the part of the BVM. Not quite as embarrassing as liturgical dance, in lieu of a sermon, I starred in a three-part liturgical drama: Mary! Pregnant with God!
It was Advent in the Eighties, and I wore Blessed Mother blue.
This is the blue season. The hangings are blue. The candles on the Advent wreath, except one, are blue.
And maybe your mood is blue or the mood of those you love and care about is blue, too. And no matter where you get your news, you know too that this little blue marble on which we spin daily spins out of control: politically, environmentally, personally. Trying to have a holly jolly Christmas in this climate is a downright struggle. In the darkness of these blue winter days, our world aches for light.
And on Advent 4, on the eve of the Christian solstice, we have walked almost all the way to Bethlehem. Walked beside a pregnant, unwed peasant girl – who artists for some reason have almost always draped in blue.
“…she was found to be with child… Her husband Joseph…planned to dismiss her quietly… But an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit… She will bear a son and you are to call him Jesus…after the prophet Isaiah who said, ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel – which means ‘God with us.’”
Now this 1st century story is a hard sell in the 21st. And I confess to you, likewise it has always been a conundrum to this Christian. Such an illustrious and exceptional birth was a common motif for the likes of emperors-turned-gods in the ancient world.
There are twenty-four books in the New Testament and only two, Matthew and Luke, pay any attention to Jesus’ origins. Even John who preaches the Word made flesh, the same Word spoken at the dawn of creation, is totally uninterested in the how this came to be.
But we Anglicans welcome wrestling with angels, unafraid to ask big questions of our faith.
Twenty-eight years ago, I crossed the street from my home parish Immanuel on-the-Hill to pursue a quest that has landed me in the pulpit this Sunday at Emmanuel on High, and many Sundays before. And the very first sermon I ever preached in homiletics class was on Advent 4, Matthew 1:18-25, the virgin birth.
And it went something like this.
Hail Mary, never virgin, the Lord is with thee.
Shocked? Got your attention, right?
And what I mean by Hail Mary, never virgin, in the poetic sense, is that when it comes to God, Mary is anything but a virgin. Vulnerable, perplexed, she is remarkably open to the proposition of impossibly becoming pregnant with God. Conceiving within herself all that is divine, all that is holy. Pondering what all this could possibly mean in her heart (as the Lukan version tells us.)
Don’t get hung up on the biology, my fellow seekers. Focus on the theology. The meaning behind the mystery. Focus on the good news that the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us. Just as true in 1991, as it was in Year One.
How do we conceive of this Word of Love within us? How do we hear it, speak it, shout it from the rooftops, live it?
Like Joseph, what dream of God do we dream?
Like Mary, what does our pregnant soul proclaim?
After a pregnant pause, I returned to my seat. I was pretty sure I had flunked my first sermon, but I got an A – or maybe a B+ — I can’t quite remember. And the seminary did not kick me out.
And for twenty-five years, “Emmanuel, God with us” is the gospel I still imperfectly preach. And I am so grateful these past five years to have been able to preach it here at Emmanuel on High. Again, on Advent 4, on Matthew 1:18-25, on the virgin birth.
I will not ask for another twenty-five, or boldly I just might. Look what God wrought with Sarah in her nineties and Elizabeth, as she was getting up in years. Ha! Every day is a gift. Every day no matter how bad or how awful or how wonderful is a holy day. Emmanuel, God with us, sticks by us in the ups and downs of our everyday – and in every way – ordinary lives.
So, Advent 4, let us all don Blessed Mother Blue, and sing along this version of Mary’s song, a song I know you have heard before.
Our souls magnify the Lord, and our spirits rejoice in God our redeemer, for God has looked with love on the lowliness of this earth. Generously, lavishly, the Lord blesses peoples of every generation. And in each and every human heart, God plants the seeds of all this is good. So that what was conceived in Mary, the Spirit of God this Christmas may also conceive in us: faith, hope and love.
When I was growing up, my father, a busy and successful surgeon, did not like to wait. He would not take us anywhere he anticipated crowds or lines. He would never go to a restaurant without a reservation. When we went to the movies, we went at odd times, arriving late, sitting in the back and leaving early. Native Washingtonians, we never visited the White House or the Washington Monument. We never went to the Cherry Blossom Festival or the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.
.“Too many tourists,” my dad would say. “Too much God damned trouble to wait in those god forsaken lines.”
No time to be patient, beloved, no time to be patient.
Waiting for Santa, Circa 1960
Now most us, including myself, much like my dad, count waiting as a colossal waste of time. And via the bazillion apps on our iPhones, iPads, and MACs, we need only navigate the net to have an instant Christmas.
Point, click and shop till you drop.
UPS and Federal Express or a guy on a Segue or an Amazon.dot.com drone will deliver to your doorstop a complete Christmas, from soup to nuts: the tree, the trimmings, the trappings, the presents and all the wrappings. Cyber-Monday, Cyber-Everyday eliminates the wait and takes us far from the maddening crowds.
Awesome Sauce! Right? Convenient for lives and calendars crammed with business appointments, committee meetings, carpools, school concerts, errands and chores. This is something close to a f*ing miracle! Successful people know that time is money — more precious than money.
Waiting is for chumps, for the clueless, for losers.
Waiting is for crazy people, waiting on the end of the world – with a specific date and time in mind for Jesus to return: survivalists stockpiling food, water, and toilet paper. Only wacky Millennialists (No, not Millennials, Millennialists!) wait on the impossible. Only wacky people wait on the mountain top for the space ship to come pick them up, beam them aboard, and fly them off to who knows where. Waiting on doomsday. Waiting for the end to come.
Two thousand years ago, the people of the church of St. Paul’s in Rome were busy waiting. They were keeping Advent, getting ready for something like a Christmas. Waiting, not for Santa, but for the Son of Man to return. He would come in glory and majesty, riding on the clouds in the company of angels. (Eat your heart out, Rudolph!)
Jesus promised he would be back. He said he would be back. So they kept vigil and they waited and they watched the skies and they yearned and they longed and they pined.
But no one came.
Be patient, beloved, be patient.
Now, patience is a virtue and sometimes the wait is worthwhile. Sometimes hanging in there is indeed worth it. After all, what is grape juice compared to a fine wine? What are Cliff Notes compared to the plot twists of your favorite book? What is a cheap and tawdry affair compared to a life long love?
Waiting cultivates desire, illuminates our need and heightens our expectations. And in the end, waiting sharpens our pain, as well as, our joy.
The people of Saint Paul’s in Rome were not just idly waiting. They weren’t just biding their time for something better to come along. They were waiting for a taste of heaven. They were waiting on eternity.
Something like a Christmas came and something like a Christmas went, year after year, generation after generation. And the folks at Saint Paul’s began to feel a little silly, a little self-conscious. And these folks, they grew plain sick and tired of waiting. And Christians everywhere, it seemed, lost the will to wait.
When Jesus did not come riding in on the clouds, like a shining knight on a white horse, as he was long expected to, we just gave up on waiting.
It’s naïve, a childish thing, beyond belief.
So instead, we now wait just four weeks for the baby in the manger.
We wait just four weeks for the Jesus who has already come.
And yet, anyone who has been through the nine months of pregnancy, or lived with someone who has, knows that birthing a baby is much more than a waiting game.
Now many a woman has wished for an Instagram/Polaroid pregnancy but it just doesn’t work that way. At first, there is the anxiety. Is the stick pink or blue? Is that a plus or minus sign? Once you know for sure, the room begins to spin and you regularly lose your lunch. And while you struggle to keep down saltines, this new little life feeds on you body and soul. You grow large and full of life, as does your heart grow and groan with love and angst. And by nine months’ end you feel a little bit like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
No part of you, no crevice of your womb is left unfilled. Over a trinity of trimesters, expectation heightens. And all those who keep watch and wait hover around you. “When is it coming? When are you due?” Some even touch and grab onto your belly as if it were their very own. (Please, always ask first!)
Who is this little one coming, who has turned you inside out?
Who is this little one coming, who will turn the world upside down?
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of its roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”
“He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…”
“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion, and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.” — Isaiah 11:1-10
Just like the people, two millennia ago, we are waiting on this little scrap of eternity, a little taste of heaven.
How do we tread this waiting-way? Well, here at Emmanuel, we have a little home grown devotional, Waiting Rooms: Poetry, Scripture & Icons for Advent. I am also leading a conversational class, God of the Cosmos & God in the Cradle on the four Sunday mornings of Advent at 9:15 AM between the services. Cocktails, Mocktails & Carols, Saturday December 7th, 7:00 – 9:00 PM joyfully previews the birth of the child. And Contemplative Christmas: A Taize Service of Evening Prayer, December 15th at 6:00 PM quietly anticipates the light of the coming Christ.
In this pregnant season of Advent, let us pray, that the Spirit breathe life into our weary souls; that Christ’s light penetrate these dark days of December.
And let us pray, beloved, that with patience, once again,
Christ be born — flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone into this broken, beat up, and wonderful world.
Come, Lord Jesus, come.
“God keeps no one waiting unless it is good for them.” Oswald Chambers
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. — Lamentations 3:25
Introduction
So much waiting and so little time. During the four short weeks of Advent, Christians anticipate both a baby being born and the end of time. Our faithful cousins, the Adventists, live in anticipation that the Second Coming is coming soon. They keep rescheduling the momentous day. Jesus, however, is on a different calendar.
We Anglicans (Episcopalians) are incarnational folks. It is Christmas that we are waiting for. God takes an enormous leap of faith to be born as a babe in the manger. Vulnerable, tiny and in need of love. That Second Coming thing is a far off and nebulous thing to us.
But in a single tick of the clock, God infuses the fullness of time.
Life is what happens while we are waiting, right? Waiting for the alarm to go off. Waiting for a downtown bus. Waiting for paint to dry and the dryer to buzz. Waiting at the dentist’s office and in line at the grocery store. Waiting for a loved one to come safely home.
Waiting on love. Waiting on hope. Waiting on faith.
Waiting on God and waiting for the Child.
This little book marks the 24 days of Advent. Each with an artistic image, a quote from literature, and links to the Daily Office readings for the season. Twenty-four days to wait until the time is ripe and for the kingdom to come.
Blessed Reading,
The Rev. Joani Peacock
December 1st: Waiting for God
Union Station, Winston-Salem, NC
‘Wait on the Lord’ is a constant refrain in the psalms, for God often keeps us waiting. He is in not such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come. — J.I. Packer
While waiting for her to phone me at school, I’d feel seconds bursting inside me and leaving clouds. That won’t come again – it can’t. I’ll never have that with anyone else. I’ll never even come close. — Helen Oyeyemi
The street to my left was backed up with traffic and I watched the people waiting patiently in the cars. There was almost always a man and a woman staring straight ahead, not talking…First the signal red, then the signal was green. The citizens of the world ate food and watched TV and worried about their jobs or lack of the same, while they waited. — Charles Bukowski
When is it going to happen? How long do we have to wait? When does construction begin? Jesus’ response was ‘It is not for you to know the times that the Father has set… In other words, it’s none of your business. Your question is irrelevant. That kind of information is no use to you. It would probably confuse you, might discourage you, and would certainly distract you. – Eugene Peterson
December 13th: Waiting for Someone Who Never Returns
Photo by @HOWWLS
I will be waiting for you at the end of every blind alley, under the lonely streetlamps that will no longer be ours. When the wind grows colder, and the huge piles of settled leaves sit there for a week of two…I will be waiting for you. I will be waiting for what could have been and for what will never be; for the letters that never arrived, the letters that were never sent, and the letters that will never be written. – Malak El Halabi
Gamma Ray Burst, 12 Billion Years Ago captured by NASA
Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation. I keep the subject constantly before me and wait until the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light. – Isaac Newton
The loudspeaker on the wall crackles, hisses, and suddenly announces, in astonishingly soothing tones, that a train is going to be delayed. An ocean-swell of sighs ripples through the waiting room. – Andrei Makine
Deep in her soul, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day… — Gustave Flaubert
He was waiting, I think, for me to cross that space and take him in my arms again – waiting as one waits at a deathbed for the miracle one dare not disbelieve, which will not happen. — James Baldwin
So, through endless twilights I dreamed and waited, though I knew not what I waited for. Then in the shadowy solitude my longing for light grew so frantic that I could rest no more, and I lifted entreating hands to the single black ruined tower that reached above the forest into the unknown outer sky. And at last I resolved to scale that tower, fall through I might, since it were better to glimpse the sky and perish, than to live without even beholding a day. – H.P. Lovecraft
All along I’d vaguely assumed the emptiness and the pain meant I was doing something wrong, but maybe it was all just part of the process so something new could be born. First the barrenness, to make space. Then the pain, which is the only way to birth. — Stephanie Rische
Some Christmas pageants have plastic baby dolls stand in for Jesus. But the liveliest of Christmas pageants have a real live baby! (If their parents will allow them to be so tortured!)
And when that live Baby Jesus makes his dramatic debut – all eyes are on the little tiny fellow. You can hear a pin drop as the holy family goes up to Bethlehem and climbs the altar stairs. Heads turn and hearts melt as all eyes are on the miniature messiah. Propped up in Mary’s lap a little bitty baby, who cannot walk, who cannot talk, cries at night, and messes in his pants.
Tame and tender, the grandeur of God is reduced to a babe in arms. The Madonna and Child are everywhere this season in paper, and plastic, and plaster — fronting Christmas cards and frozen in nativity scenes.
Sentimental and sweet, safe and sound.
Round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild.
Have you ever smelled a newborn baby? Have you ever stuck your nose in their neck? There is no other scent like it: a scent of the holy, a whiff of the divine, the aroma of life itself.
And if you have, you know then and there that you are hooked. Your ears tune in to decipher their every whimper, their every gurgle and cry.
Teach me, little one, how to love you.
This helpless little person wins over your heart and takes over your world – a subversive little savior.
From Julie Vivas’ “The Nativity”
It’s been said that Christmas is for such as these. And why not? On Christmas Day, God came into the world a screaming, scrawny infant, small and insignificant. Just as we all did once upon a time.
Twenty years ago, I read the story of a little fellow, a six year old named Pete. Pete ripped open his presents and pulled out a dapper new bathrobe. His dad admiring it said,
“Wow! That’s an awesome bathrobe. I wish I had one just like it.”
Pete paused for a little quiet introspection.
“You really like it, Dad?”
“Yes, Pete. It’s the coolest bathrobe I have ever seen.”
“Well, Dad,” says Pete. “You can have it. You can wear it when you get little.”
(The Christian Century, December 1998)
Jesus says quite plainly “unless you turn and become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Now to be sure, he’s not suggesting we literally regress to cooing and babbling, pablum and Pampers.
But Jesus emphasizes a very special quality of life, which he himself chose.
Like a child, God himself was born to be needy. God himself was not ashamed to be helpless, hungry, lonely, and small.
God gets little on our account, choosing to be born poor in a simple town to an ordinary girl. It is almost too great a mystery and yet it makes perfect sense.
This little Messiah is God on the move: moving from the powerful to the powerless, from success to failure, from the strong to the weak, from the high to the low.
And if we let him in, this Little One in, he can creep through our cracks, tend to what is broken, sweep away some tears, lighten a few burdens, brighten our nights.
And the little things we might do in his name: running an errand for an elderly neighbor; babysitting a friend’s sick child so they can go to work; smiling instead of grimacing at passersby; walking or biking instead of driving to reduce your carbon footprint; cleaning up the riverfront to help care for Mother Earth; donating to lost causes; raising your hand to volunteer.
All these (and many more) little things help to pave the way for the Christ Child to come again.
Try to make a little room in your inner-self and invite the Little One in. Listen, if you can to his still small voice. The voice that whispers tidings of peace.
This season, the subversive little savior might just break open your soul.
Love, you know is born at Christmas.
Love is why God gets little at Christmas.
And for love, may we, this Christmas, get little too.
While the church is a bit fussy about music in Advent, I confess to being obsessed with the mall muzak of the holiday season.
Ever since I was a little kid, Jingle Bells has brought me joy; O Come, All Ye Faithful has given me comfort. The chaos of my childhood home not withstanding.
I loved to sing — though Sister Inez Patricia kicked me out of the Glee Club for belting out Joy to the World off key. I cajoled my piano teacher Mrs. Wertz into letting me practice Christmas carols year round. And I have a vague memory of actually gathering a sibling and maybe my grandmother (who would humor this child) “round the spinet” for a carol or two.
No matter how dark my December days, these little embers of memory never fail to warm my Advent soul.
But not to over do it! Psychologists warn us that overdosing on Christmas music is not good for your mental health. Especially, if you start tuning in the first of November, when Target has put up all of their Christmas stuff – post Halloween. The Twelve Days of Christmas will definitely drive you crazy, when you still have fifty five days to go!
But this first Sunday of Advent, I think we are safe. All things in moderation, my dad used to say.
Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness mourning ‘neath their sorrows’ load;
Speak ye peace to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover, and her warfare now is over.
Hark, the voice of one that crieth in the desert far and near,
calling us to new repentance, since the kingdom now is here.
These words from Second Isaiah (which inspired the Advent hymn) make a good measure of the the music we play – to make our souls merry – this holiday season. As does this verse from Psalm 25.
All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness. Ps 25:9
Our lives in this world – no matter how charmed our circumstances – are but a walk in the wilderness. A wonderful walk. A dazzling and challenging walk.
And maybe this year has been wilder or weirder or more bewildering or even more wondrous than those past. With…
newborn babies and loved ones dying;
terrible twos and aging parents;
lost jobs and new occupations;
weddings and partings;
hard knocks and soft landings;
rejection and reception;
retreat and renewal;
reunion and return;
delight and despair;
whether any of it be private, personal, or shared.
Having a Holly, Jolly (and hopeful) Christmas is a complicated thing.
For a dozen years running now, two of my children, Zach and Colleen have produced an annual Christmas album. It is not your usual holiday fare. It started out just silly and fun but has turned into a sibling bonding ritual they return to each year. (Zach now being 36 and Colleen 34.)
And each album has a different theme – that captures the mood and the meaning of that particular Christmas:
Party hardy Christmas;
Down Home Country Christmas;
Christmas Around the World;
and in a bluer season:
The Smooth Sounds of Christmas.
And this being the twelfth season, the 12 Days of Christmas, of course, a retrospective.
The tracks they choose are outlandish, surprising, delightful, poignant, moody, and sad.
Each is a cacophony of voices, crying out in the wilderness – a way to tune into the Greatest Story Ever Told. A way to tune into the crazy Second Coming of God.
(Though I am pretty sure they would not describe it that way! Ha!)
Maybe you could make your own?
As a spiritual exercise, why not put together your own Messiah playlist: whether it be Handel, Bing Crosby, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Prince, the Anonymous Four, Gregorian chant, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Instead of a Christmas letter, you can share your playlists and attach it to an e-Christmas card.
My own which I, so creatively labeled: Christmas, Christmas, Christmas🙂 shuffles over 200 carols in the privacy of my car (or my living room.) Where I can sing along – lustily and with abandon – which I recommend most highly!
And besides the car or the shower, where else can you make a joyful Christmas noise?
While the church is a bit fussy about music in Advent, I confess to being obsessed with the “mall muzak” of the holiday season.
Ever since I was a little kid, Jingle Bells has brought me joy; O Come, All Ye Faithful has given me comfort. The chaos of my childhood home not withstanding.
I loved to sing — though Sister Inez Patricia kicked me out of the Glee Club for belting out Joy to the World off key. And with my piano teacher, Mrs. Wertz, I cajoled her into letting me work on Christmas carols the year round. And I have a vague memory of actually gathering a sibling and likely my grandmother (who would humor this child) “round the spinet” a time or two.
No matter how dark my December days, these little embers of memory never fail to warm my Advent soul.
But not to over do it! Psychologists warn us that overdosing on Christmas music is not good for your mental health. Especially, if you start tuning in the first of November, when Target has put up all of their Christmas stuff – post Halloween. The Twelve Days of Christmas will definitely drive you crazy, when you still have fifty five days to go!
But this second Sunday of Advent, I think we are safe. “All things in moderation,” my dad used to say.
Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness mourning ‘neath their sorrows’ load;
Speak ye peace to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover, and her warfare now is over.
Hark, the voice of one that crieth in the desert far and near,
calling us to new repentance, since the kingdom now is here.
These words of Second Isaiah encapsulated in Advent hymn #67, from the ’82 Hymnal, can make a good measure of the the music we play – to make our souls merry – this holiday season. As do the words of the psalmist, as well:
I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, for he is speaking peace to his people. Ps 85:8
Our lives in this world – no matter how charmed our circumstances – are but a walk in the wilderness. A wonderful walk. A dazzling and challenging walk.
And maybe this year has been wilder or weirder or more bewildering or even more wondrous than those past. With…
newborn babies and loved ones dying;
terrible twos and aging parents;
lost jobs and new occupations;
weddings and divorces;
retreat and renewal;
reunion and return;
delight and despair;
whether any of it be private, personal, or shared.
Having a Holly, Jolly (and hopeful) Christmas is a complicated thing.
For a decade running now, two of my children, Zach and Colleen have produced an annual Christmas album. It is not your usual holiday fare. It started out just silly and fun but has turned into a sibling bonding ritual they return to each year. (Zach now being 35 and Colleen 33.)
And each album has a different theme – that captures the mood and the meaning of this Christmas:
Party hardy Christmas;
Down Home Country Christmas;
Christmas All Around the World;
and in a bluer season:
The Smooth Sounds of Christmas.
The tracks they choose are outlandish, surprising, delightful, poignant, moody, and sad.
Each of them is a cacophony of voices, crying out in the wilderness – a way to tune into Jesus in the manger once again. A way to tune into the crazy Second Coming of God.
(Though I am pretty sure they would not describe it that way! Ha!)
So what have you got on that iPod of yours? What have you got on Spotify?
As a spiritual exercise, why not put together your own “Messiah” playlist: whether it be Handel, Bing Crosby, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Prince, the Anonymous Four, Gregorian chant, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Instead of a Christmas letter, you can share your playlists and attach it to an e-Christmas card.
My own which I, so creatively labeled: Christmas, Christmas, Christmas 🙂 shuffles over 200 carols in the privacy of my car (or my living room.) Where I can sing along – lustily and with abandon – which I recommend most highly!
So make a joyful and genuine Christmas Carol noise!
