Doesn't matter when I get started, or how much I feel ready, in these last few days before Christmas it always surprises me that it's all happening so soon. How could it be only 'five more sleeps' until The Day?
But it is. And here I am, ready and waiting, and bedazzled again by the cosmic improbability of Love Incarnated. That's where these pre-Christmas meditations sometimes take me. God came down? He put on human skin?
And to be perfectly honest, it could easily all become just a 'nice' story bordering on myth to me, if it weren't for a dynamic piece of compelling evidence that it actually did happen -- you.
When you set aside your personal agendas...
When you take no thought of status or position...
When you're selfless and kind and compassionate....
When you persist in the mundane and refuse to run after 'sparklier' but lesser things...
When you serve tirelessly, and offer yourselves as living sacrifices...
When you open your arms and your hearts and even your homes, to make room for others on the journey...
That is when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the King of the Universe really did wrap Himself in humanity.
Because to do so, He had to set aside any personal agendas and took no thought of status or position. It was an act of ultimate selflessness, unbelievable kindness and infinite compassion. He arrived in such an obscure, ordinary way, refusing to be born in the palace He deserved, but offering Himself to the totality of His mission, and opening His arms to the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, the broken.So when any group of people think, feel and behave in any of these extraordinary, cosmically improbable ways, there is mighty evidence indeed that the power of the Incarnated Christ resides among them.
You need to know that to live and serve and be among you is a great honour for me, one I feel woefully undeserving of. To watch God move among us in countless completely obvious and totally hidden ways, knowing that His Holy Spirit is being allowed to shape, correct and inspire us more and more into the image of His Son? What a good and astonishing gift!
As we move closer to Christmas Day, whatever it holds for each of us personally, my prayer is that that we will make every effort to be fully present with the ones God gathers around our table, and to be acutely aware of His deep desire to be "Emmanuel" - with us - over the holidays, and in our lives always.
The New Year holds many more good and astonishing gifts, of that I am confident. I can't wait to unwrap them with you as we continue to be a 'cosmic improbability' in our own backyard and around the world.
I love you. I say this with everything I know in my heart to be true.
Ruth Anne
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