God Came to Earth as a Baby

From Cathy Ode, Director of Children's Ministries

God came to earth as a baby on that very first Christmas.

What does that mean to you?

When I was little, I didn't think much about Jesus. Pretty much the only time Jesus entered my consciousness was at Christmastime, when I'd see manger scenes large and small -- a big one oudoors in a New England town square, a small do-not-touch creche at a grandparent's house. If anyone had asked my child-self who Jesus was, I'd probably have said, "Well, he's this baby..."

As I grew, Jesus became a man to me but one frozen in ancient, irrelevant history. "What would Jesus do?" Well, what did I care?! We moved a lot because of my dad's job, and I went to lots of different churches. But I always felt like an outsider. I never got to know any of the other kids at Sunday School. And I certainly never felt like I knew Jesus. He was a symbol, a stranger. He was the mascot for a club I never quite fit into.

I began attending church on my own while I was in college. There happened to be a Lutheran church two doors down from a co-op where I lived sophomore year. It was pretty easy to roll out of bed and down the street a couple times a month. I wasn't thinking much about Jesus, but I was aware of a craving for something. Community maybe? A home away from home? An anchor for my crazy college life? In that church community I was fed and befriended, both literally and spiritually. And there was a dim awareness that somehow we were all distant relatives of Jesus, and that I belonged in their midst.

Pregnant with my first child one Advent a few years later, I began to know Jesus in a brand new way. Those stories -- of Mary traveling, young and afraid -- resonated strongly for me. I was newly (and shakily) married, in a new town with no family or friends to share the joy of impending birth. Mary's experience helped to make Jesus real for me, as a flesh and blood baby of all-too-human parents.

As a young mom of two, I became a youth group leader. I knew by now that Jesus wasn't a fiction or a fable. Although I didn't know Jesus well, I had a deep sense that he knew me. And that made an enormous difference in my life. I felt called to share this deep conviction with teens, a calling that scared me half to death! Adolescents can smell hypocrisy a mile away. I still didn't know how to reconcile my belief with my unbelief. But I'd received by then the gift of faith, or "the hope for things that are not seen but are true." (Hebrews 11:1)

Fast forward a couple of decades. I'm a bona fide "church lady" now: fifty years old, with gray hairs and a grown-ups office at St. John's. My relationship with Jesus has weathered some storms that sank other relationships.

And here's what Christmas means to me this year -- God came to earth as a baby to teach us our role in bringing about the reign of heaven on earth. A baby must be held, fed, clothed, protected, cherished above all else for at least one moment early in life. God lay there helpless in the straw. God waited to be picked up, snuggled close, and gazed at with adoring eyes. Had that not happened, the promise could have died there in the manger. But Joseph and Mary got it (with a little help from angels, shepherds, and kings, perhaps!). And we need to get it too. Omnipotent, all-powerful God can't do it alone. I am thankful for the wisdom of our childhoods, "Jesus is this baby..." Love comes to us fragile and in utter need of our care. O come let us adore him. And then let's pick him up and get to work.

The Source of My Being

From Diane Wells, Parish Administrator: Last Sunday I took the dog and the husband for a walk. It was a beautiful day. Mostly cloudy skies in conjunction with the autumn monochrome of the foothills made everything seem oddly two dimensional. As we walked along, the trail busy with the usual Boulder hikers/runners/bikers/stroller pushers/dog walkers, I commented to my husband on the burgeoning population of Cynomys ludovicianus (the fancy name for the lowly prairie dog!) Of course, Pablo the Wonder Dog had already noticed and was busy snorfelling (see Urban Dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Snorfel ) along, content to reflect on his prairie dog chasing days, now long past. All three of us were completely unaware of the drama unfolding ever-so-quietly out in the middle of the prairie dog colony just to our right. Then, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw something stealthy move. I turned in time to see a beautiful, healthy, and apparently hungry coyote fake right, fake left then lunge forward. It was a wonderful thing to watch, that young, lean coyote so completely coyote in her autumn-colored body. When she leaped up from that lunge, one of the prairie dog denizens dangled helplessly from her jaws. She proceeded to “play” with her catch cat-like until it was finally lifeless, then she trotted off a ways and buried her treasure. It was an amazing moment. After all, after the one million, one hundred and seventeen hikes I’ve been on in my life, I don’t think I have ever seen a predator actually hunt AND catch prey. It was a vivid reminder that nature, the place I most earnestly seek and find the Source of my being, is really all about the eaters and the eaten. Nature is “red in tooth and claw”, but nature is also the calm breeze, the raging storm, the magnificent sequoia, the blue sky, the wolf spider, the nuthatch, the bull snake, the starving cougar, the frozen stream, the gale force wind…… all at the same time. None of it is “right” or “wrong”; the beauty and perfection of nature is the system of it, the delicate balance of the system that is sometimes played out in a field in north Boulder between a coyote and a prairie dog. It is a place that appeals to the both/and thinking of the mystic’s mind. There is no “good or evil”, no “yes or no”, no “right or wrong”. It is just filled with “is-ness”, the “is-ness” where God lives.

From JK Melton, Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries: The holiest place I have been recently was Collyer Park in Longmont. On Friday evenings at 6 p.m., a group of homeless people gather there for worship and dinner. Deacon Marc Genty leads the service, and the parishioners do the preaching. The liturgy is simple and brief, but the connection between all of the people gathered there as equals is beautiful to behold.

I now have a new vision of what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like. It looks like that group gathered under the picnic shelter in the park. There was a woman who volunteers at the shelter, a woman missing several teeth, a priest, a man who smelled strongly, some deacons, quite a few smokers, some social workers, a man who was grateful for the cart that held everything he owned, and a few suburban people stepping outside their comfort zone. There was also a goofy youth director who was wishing quietly that he had not worn shorts (yours truly), and there were some people who were grieving the recent loss of a friend who had died on the street earlier that week. When we exchanged the peace, everyone exchanged hugs. There was no doubt in my mind that we were in the presence of Jesus.

Some members of our youth group got to know Deacon Marc in August at a youth event called 24 Hours Without a Roof, which is designed to help young people understand homelessness. Marc came and talked about his work, and we all participated in the liturgy he leads on Friday nights. Our youth came away from that event with a much deeper understanding of homelessness and the profound difficulties we face in solving this problem.

At 24 Hours Without a Roof, we met a homeless man who taught us an important lesson: “Socks are gold!” Over the next few weeks, our youth group will be collecting socks to take to Common Cathedral. We will meet up with other Episcopal youth groups from around the county, make sandwiches, and go worship in the park, and share our socks with the homeless. I am eager to return to Longmont and to experience this service again. I’m also excited to return with an offering that will mean very much to my friends at Common Cathedral.

How to evolve from a ‘human doing’ into a ‘human being’…..

From Diane Wells, Parish Administrator:
I keep two lists. Actually, it’s one list with two names. The first name for the list that is numbered from one to infinity and includes things like 1) answer emails; 2) answer phone messages; 3) make breakfast; 4) put dishes away; 5) vacuum house (or at least part of the house!) ; 6) clean bathroom(s); 7) walk the pooch; 8) feed the cat; etc. etc. etc. is the “to do” list. And, as I cross items off of this “to do” list, it becomes my “to done” list. The more “to done” items I have on the list, the happier I am. Happier, that is, until the “to dos” begin to outpace the “to dones” and I slowly become aware of the fact that there is no way on earth (or anyplace else, for that matter) that I will ever be able to finish my list, let alone keep up with all of my responsibilities. That’s when my feeling of happiness takes a nosedive and I end up burned out, turned off, and ready to run as far away from my meaningless reality as I possibly can. I have established this pattern in my life and I repeat it over and over and over again. But I may have discovered a way to get out of this cycle. The key to avoiding this pattern is not to stop making lists. We all have tasks that need to be accomplished every day in order to achieve our goals. The key is to know what your goals are and always keep the big picture in mind. The tasks have to be situated in a framework of meaning because simply focusing on the tasks themselves will leave you feeling overwhelmed and under-fulfilled. So why am I doing all of that vacuuming and dishwashing and laundry and lawn mowing and weed pulling?? Because living in a lovely, well-cared for environment is good for the soul. WOW! All of a sudden scrubbing the bathroom floor has been transformed into a spiritual practice. I am discovering that for me, 99.9% of all of my tasks are ultimately some form of spiritual practice designed to make the world a better place one clean sock, one fruitful tomato plant, one helpful, pleasant encounter at a time. Looking at it that way, having an infinity of “to dos” becomes a blessing.

Reflections on Autumn

From Pam White, Communications Coordinator:
During the last week or so, autumn has come to Boulder. The leaves are changing and falling, and we had our first snowfall. Football season is in full swing, and we watched the Rockies take their last swings of the season in the playoffs. I love this all-too-brief interlude between summer picnics and cooking the Thanksgiving turkey, between mowing the lawn and putting up the Christmas tree, between having beads of sweat gather on your forehead and seeing your breath as you walk outside to fetch the mail. For me, it’s a time to snuggle down and enjoy home and hearth. It’s a season when we don’t have to decorate because God has already done it for us. We can just give thanks for another harvest and for our many blessings – and have time to enjoy them.

Is Civility a Thing of the Past?

From Father Rol Hoverstock, Rector:
I’m intrigued by the word civility. It appears in lots of discussions these days. Society seems to have forgotten what it means to be civil. Acts of hostility — or even cruelty — are routinely reported in our headlines. Officials in Congress, elected to represent the citizenry, are at war with one another. Confrontation on the entertainment stage becomes news. And incivility is now a part of sports rhetoric.
I believe these scary demonstrations of aggression must cause us to examine ourselves and our ability to create a just way of life. I know they cause me to look in the mirror and question whether, as God’s people, we are indeed capable of living together in harmony. I find the current climate of incivility disingenuous, mean spirited, arrogant, and noisy, but I have an antidote for all of us — or at least one that works for me.
The antidote is to go to church. Time in church just might be the beginning of the cure — a space to create a change of heart in our collective ability to make a more civilized life together. In the Episcopal Church, our way is a spirituality of understatement. We have a love for the beauty of places and words, of the acceptance of others who might not always agree with us, of the acceptance of the fact that even when we use all the grace given to us we may still have only moments of understanding. We know that we don’t know it all, and we embrace the opportunity to learn from the “other” guy. We see ourselves as neither fools nor fanatics as we seek to follow our Lord in a world which is often perplexing and sometimes crucifying.
So when you’re disheartened by the incivility of the world around you, you might think about spending some time in church. We certainly invite you to join us at St. John’s, but wherever you worship, we pray you will find peace and civility to help you through these troubled times.