NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

“ Love came down at Christmas Love all holy, love divine Love was born at Christmas Star and angel gave the sign.” [ For a modern rendition of this carol by Jars of Clay, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIr5th0d44Y  ] I’m pretty sure we are all familiar with these words by Christina Rossetti … in fact we may have sung them only last night or this morning. Just as I’m also sure we have heard at least one sermon mentioning the importance of love in the Christmas story. But have we really experienced or internalized just what this actually is in our lives? Everyone has a Christmas story … and so here’s mine. Let’s revisit the knight and his lady, who, if you remember from my earlier blog “An Allegory”, are now settled in the "kingdom that cares'. "It was just a few days before Christmas, and the weather outside was frightful! While the main roads were simply treacherous, the lanes and by-ways were impassable. People were warned not to ventur...

From Wikipedia …. Miraculous births are a common element in historical literature and religious texts. Stories of miracle births often included miraculous conceptions and features such as intervention by a deity, supernatural elements, astronomical signs, hardship or in the case of some mythologies complex plots related to creation. All births are miraculous. As Christmas approaches, my thoughts have turned to birth stories, not just to the one birth story we celebrate on the 25 th of this month but rather the place of birth stories in general in our culture and I suspect in all cultures. Reminiscences are common themes at family birthday celebrations: “I remember an eclipse happening on the day you were born.” or “When Uncle Fred saw you for the first time he knew you would be concert pianist one day because of your long fingers.” or “Aunt Sarah brought you the weirdest gift – an adult-sized motorcycle helmet. How did she know that 20 years later you would be riding a motor...

This quote by Nelson Mandela speaks so eloquently to me of what he must have experienced on his release from 29 years as a prisoner on Robben Island, as he tried to fit in again to the community he had left behind. I have heard over and over as part of the news coverage the Mandela was not a ‘church’ person, so I can only wonder about how his perception of that ‘might’ have altered over those years. I would wager that most of you reading this blog can also relate to a time or times in your own lives when on returning to a beloved place or meeting with friends from years previous, you have found that things didn't fit so well anymore. Sometimes we need events like these. We need to become aware of how we have changed, of where we have traveled, of what new things have become part of who we are. The church is the one place we can all go that remains for the most part virtually unchanged from what we remember growing  up … and many continue to go precisely because wh...

“God's presence is incarnated in the times and places when and where people are willing to be vulnerable and allow the spirit to work unimpeded.”  ~ Quoted anonymously While reflecting on this statement, the story of the woman with the hemorrhage kept coming into my mind. It is told in all three of the synoptic gospels, but with a difference: in Matthew the woman does not come forward to admit  publicly  that she had touched Jesus’ cloak. If we look at the story in Mark and Luke, we see in both accounts that she was unnoticed in the touching the hem of Jesus’ garment, even by the disciplines, and could have just gone away healed and unknown [as she did in Matthew].  But although she was frightened of what Jesus might say to her because, after all, she had made him ritually unclean, she came forwarded and admitted that she was the one who touched him. And THAT act was what made the most difference to her life.  Yes, she had been healed physically...