The house isn't decorated, the cards aren't mailed: Doing what really matters this Christmas...

 

The year that our older daughter was born, we joined neighbors for a Christmas celebration. Their home was so beautifully decorated, and I had serious Christmas-décor envy. Not a nook, not a cranny of their home was untouched by my friend’s very creative and talented hand.

 

A couple of years later, as we were preparing to have friends over for an Advent evening dinner, I asked my friend for her help in getting our house ready. I hauled out the bins of items that I had acquired through the years, and she brought a few more lovely items to add. In one evening, she had helped me transform our house into a showplace, from the Christmas trees, to the stairwell, to the mantle, to the chandeliers, to lovely centerpieces for the tables. And she had done it with such great ease, patiently guiding me through all of the steps that I needed to make it all happen on my own.

 

Faithfully, I recreated her beautiful work for a number of years after, always giving her the credit for helping me put it all together. But somewhere along the way, the hours that it took me to do it all seemed to escape. There were Birthday Parties for Baby Jesus at our house, and with the kids at Emmanuel Center - time spent trying to teach children the true meaning of the season. There were gifts to wrap for children at Emmanuel Center, who otherwise might not have gifts at Christmas, and meals-on-wheels to deliver to seniors. And, in more recent years, there were homebound parishioners to visit, and hands to hold.

 

Our house isn’t decorated. The cards haven’t been mailed. And the shopping? Well, no, that hasn’t been finished yet, either.

 

A piece of me wonders if I’ve let our daughters down. As they arrive home from college, it won’t be to a Southern Living decorated home or an extraordinarily decadent dessert.

 

But I hope, as they mature, their own Christmas to-do list will better mirror the one above, upon which I recently stumbled, than the one to which I aspired years ago. I hope that hours that might be filled with buying presents will instead be hours during which they will be present with those who need them. I hope that the attention that might otherwise be given to hanging decorations and lights will instead be attention given to being a light in lives that are filled with darkness. I do believe that, in the midst of very busy lives and too-often misplaced priorities, this modified to-do list is one which will serve us all better in these days to come.

For this one moment, we can choose to love....

The pictures that I hoped I would see from Charleston, South Carolina last Sunday appeared – just as I hoped I would see them.

Emanuel AME Church was packed with worshippers. Men and women, black and white, these children of God were all singing and praying together.

For one day, one moment in time, God’s people were united in worship and prayer, and it was a beautiful sight.

My heart wishes that it hadn’t taken the loss of nine lives, the murders of nine innocent people, to make that moment in time happen.

The group had gathered for Bible Study, when a young stranger came among them. The pastor and church members welcomed him, and he apparently sat quietly in their midst for an hour, as they prayed and studied the Scriptures.

And then the young stranger opened fire, taking their lives.

We all want to believe that this kind of violence shouldn’t happen anywhere, but especially not in God’s house. We all want to believe that God’s house is, of all places, a place of peace and love, not hatred and violence. We all want to believe that a young man like the man accused of these murders could not, in such a short life, have learned such hatred.

Our collective hope has been shattered.

Yet what this young man may have intended for evil has created for God’s people everywhere a singular opportunity to choose to bring about great good.

Jesus tells us, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” We are to love one another just as Jesus loved the man born blind and the lame man lying in despair, the leper and the demoniac, outcast from their communities, the hated tax collector and the Samaritan woman at the well. To love like Jesus loves means setting aside fears and misgivings about those who are different than we are – and to see the handprint of the Maker on all of God’s beloved children.

For this one moment in time, we can choose to love as Jesus loves. And when we do, we can expect great things to happen: Hatred cannot thrive when it is choked out by that much love.