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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
December 24, 2011
Excerpt from “God’s Joy Moves”
Persian poet Rumi
God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
From cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
Now a cliff covered with vines,
Now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
Till one day it cracks them open.
“Come Into Christmas”
Ellen Fay
It is the winter season of the year
Dark and Chilly
Perhaps it is a winter season in your life.
Dark and chilly there, too
Come in to Christmas here,
Let the light and warmth of Christmas brighten our lives and the world.
Let us find in the dark corners of our souls the light of hope,
A vision of the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Let us find rest in the quiet of a holy moment to find promise and renewal.
Let us find the child in each of us, the new hope, the new light, born in us.
Then will Christmas come
Then will magic return to the world.
“The Shortest Day”
Susan Cooper
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
Adapted from “Hosannas of a Heavenly Host”
by Edward
After the stores have closed and the final presents
have been wrapped,
beyond the ding, ding, ding
of Salvation Army hand bells;
Beyond the steady, efficient
computer click of cash registers;
Beyond the sometimes gay, sometimes reverent
drone of Christmas MUZAK
There comes the deep silence of Christmas Eve
It is a thoughtful silence
of watching and waiting
The silence of the Winter’s longest night.
Look into the star – studded dome
of infinity and shiver
Your heartbeat gives
such wonderful comfort
That feeling of utter holiness
Becomes an unuttered prayer
At this moment
You know
Why
The shepherds
Who kept watch through the night
Heard the hosanna of the heavenly host.
Luke 2: 1-7
“Each Night A Child ls Born”
by Sophia Lyon Fahs
For so the children come
and so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they came
Born of the seed of man and woman
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
no wise man see a star to show where to find
The babe that will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers –
Sitting beside their children’s cribs-
Feel glory in the sight of a new beginning.
They ask “Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?”
Each night a child is born is a holy night-
A time for singing-
A time for wondering
A time for worshipping.
Luke 2: 8-14
Luke 2: 15-20
“In This Night”
by Dorothee Solie
In this night the stars left their habitual places
And kindled wildfire tidings
that spread faste
In this night the shepherds left their posts
To shout the new slogans
into each other’s clogged ears.
In this night the foxes left their warm burrows
and the lion spoke with deliberation,
“This is the end revolution”
In this night roses fooled the earth
And began to bloom in snow.
A Ritual of the Winter Solstice Fire
Meg Barnhouse
Let us take into our hands a Christmas Candle, a Solstice candle
this is a night of ancient joy and ancient fear
those who have gone before us were fearful of what lurked
outside the ring of fire, of light and warmth.
As we light this fire we ask that the fullness of its flame
protect each of us from what we fear most
and guide us towards our perfect light and joy.
May we each be encircled by the fire and warmth of love
and by the flame of our friendship with one another.
On this night, it was the ancient custom to exchange gifts
of light, symbolic of
Therefore make ready for the light!
Light of star, light of candle,
Firelight, lamplight, love light
Let us share the gift of light.
The Work of Christmas
Howard Thurman
When the song of angels s stilled,
When the star in the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When shepherds are back with
their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken.
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the brothers,
to make music in the heart.
“A Wish”
by Max Coots
For you, I wish:
Soft snow,
A gift, both given and received, wrapped in love, a candle and a fire,
A bowl of crisp red apples, tangerines, and oily oranges,
A blizzard of cards that bring those others closer than they were before,
A tree that somehow kept its green when autumn came and went,
The joy of old stories that seem forever new and songs sung softly
under the breath of peace on earth
Go in Peace and Love
