Sitting in the detitrus of Christmas

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We bloomed in Spring

Our bodies are the leaves of God

 

The apparent seasons of life and death

Our eyes can suffer;

 

But our souls, dear, I will just say this forthright:

they are God

Himself

 

We will never perish

Unless God

Does

St. Teresa of Avila

 

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O Lord

for many the celebration is over

the trees are looking dry and tired

the presents are opened, and

the food consumed

 

Already people begin

to turn away from the season

(although strictly speaking, there are 12 days to celebrate)

 

and perhaps

 

from one another too,

as families scatter

that momentary togetherness gone

 

off to their offices

or to their rooms

back to lives as usual

 

how quickly, O Beloved

we turn back into our daily lives

how quickly, too, we lose our sense of you

 

that sense of presence

which is, after all, what the season is all about

 

You with us

Real

Palatable

The insistent crying of a baby in the night

 

How quickly, O Beloved,

we return to fear and all that goes with it

How quickly we return to hate, violence, judgement and exclusion

 

And fail to remember

that You are with us always

That we participate in you, (or you in us, I am never sure)

 

You are birthed in us

and we are never alone

 

We carry you, cling to you,

Much as Mary clung to the baby,

And that even though the unreality of Christmas is over

The reality of Christmas

Remains

 

And that reality,

That we are loved by God

And we can love ourselves and others.

In spite of reality

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“Hope is living the reality and yet investing in a different one.”

          Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes

 

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Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”

(Hamilton Wright Mabie)

 

Or maybe not

 

Merry Christmas to all, including the scum and sleazebags  (DJT)

 

It was not exactly a season of peace, love, and joy

With rumors of wars

And military strikes in Nigeria orchestrated to salvage a ravaged ego

And keep a hate-filled base titillated.

 

Our reality is a thing of horror

As the foul beast that is MAGA

Slouches toward the future

 

Ready to destroy and devour

 

Tragedies about

In Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, Nigeria

Tragedies manufactured by people

obsessed with power, and themselves

 

people who are literally

the horsemen of the apocalypse

 

They are our harbingers of destruction,

division

violence

economic collapse,

and mass death.

 

This is what we face, even as we face our own

personal tragedies and struggles

 

One wants to quit

 

We mourn the losses (such as my wonderful dog, Finn)

and the injustice

the manufactured violence

We feel the pain

 

and it feels like a conspiracy of hate, not a conspiracy of love

 

And yet

Christmas calls us to one thing.

 

To hope

 

We can think of that baby,

That strange gift, that met such a devastating end

But came to teach us to love

 

To love despite it all

To heal, despite it all

To welcome, and give, and forgive

 

In the face of the worst the world can do

 

To live in this world,

But to invest in a different reality

 

Hope, as the Palestinians say

Is not something you feel

It is something you do

 

So let’s “do hope”

Let’s stay engaged

Let us never tire of doing good

 

For who knows what will happen

If we don’t give up

Hope is what we do

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Empire behaves like God

Who can stop them?

It seems omnipresent

And all-powerful

 

It comes into the streets with violence

Masked thugs in camo

Beating down

the black person

brown person

 

mother mary

pregnant

dragged through the snow

sobbing

 

bulldozers come

and destroy another home

and rip up another olive tree

 

drones fly

death on the wing

 

it is everywhere

 

and where the H3!!

Is God?

 

The heavy foot of empire is not new

Always the powerful

The rich

Have tried to keep us all down

 

And we the people

Have cried to a God who doesn’t respond

 

It seems hopeless

Indeed, so many no longer feel hope

 

It is all too much

The evidence piles up

As Empire God steals hope

 

And yet against all hope

When there is no reason for hope

We must have hope

 

Not hope as optimism

Or wishful thinking

 

Not hope as a feeling

 

Hope is not what we feel

It is what we do

 

This is what I learned from the people of Palestine this last week.

Hope is what you do!!

 

We may not be able to feel hope.

 

But we can live hope

We can live each day as if love wins,

As if compassion and empathy are good

As if every person, no matter their color, country of origin, or language (or even faith system), is a child of God and a treasure

 

We can care. 

Give. 

Forgive. 

Help.

Welcome

 

It is like Christmas

Where God did not send thoughts and prayers

Did not say what needed to be said

But did what needed to be done

 

Sent the light into the darkness

Do Hope

Be Hope

Shine