Season of Gladness

Amazing Peace by Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
Into this climate of fear and apprehension,
Christmas enters.  It is the season of gladness.

This is the season of gladness; the season of smells of bayberry and cinnamon, songs, and poetry.  This is the season of stories of hope, faith, forgiveness, generosity, light, healing, and homecoming.  Some say stories are medicine and that they have power – we need only listen, be attentive and receptive. “Stories are crucial to our sense of well-being, to our identity, to our memory, and to our future.”

Our God has truly entered the human condition; a condition that is not all clean and lovely, warm and welcoming as Hallmark Christmas cards would have us believe.  As one author writes, “Our secular, consumer society has usurped much of the wondrous mystery of it all from under us.  Have we not, as well, sanitized the whole scene? Have we not softened the rough straw with Downy, sprayed a fragrance to cover the smells of the animals; silence the cries of Mary in childbirth; tranquilized Joseph in his fear as he heard the first cries of this baby boy?”

We are made for these times as a people, a church, a nation, a world ~ we are made for these times and called, invited, chosen, and challenged to not only sing of peace, not only to speak of peace -  but BE peace.  Blessings of comfort and joy to you and yours!