Creating Intentions for a Christ-Centered Holiday and New Year

Be not lax in celebrating! Be not lazy in the festive service of God! – Hildegard of Bingen

What happens when we live God’s way? God “brings gifts into our lives..things like affection for others, exuberance about life..a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.”  Galatians 5:22-23 The Message

I hope you all had a beautiful Christmas! In looking back at my post-Christmas/pre-New Years post from last year —  in reflecting on Christmas — I wrote about how in making an intention before the holiday season to seek the heart of Christ, I was able, like this year, to enjoy a wonderful, heartwarming Christmas.

This year’s Christmas wonder started with contemplating the meaning of Faith, Peace, Joy and Love during the four weeks of Advent. We also limited gift giving and shopping. To avoid crowds Christmas shopping, we went for a Christmas tree just a week before Christmas.  Yet, when we saw the prices of trees at the two lots we visited doubled this year, fed up Christmas materialism, we decided, for the first time EVER, not to get a Christmas tree. The tipping point came for my husband who had gone down an isle ahead of me to look for trees, when he overheard a father cry “I can’t afford these prices” while shopping for a tree with his three kids.

We spoke all the way back home, near tears, about the injustices and lies going on in the name of Christ, hoping to figure out a way next year to help support local families who can’t afford trees, and help them get one at no cost. The next day I called the manager at one of the lots to scold them for raising the prices where families with little children who are struggling can’t afford to buy a tree. I ended up being on hold listening to a Christmas music loop for 15 minutes, and gave up.

But I didn’t give up on Christmas.

That evening at home our beautiful collection of Nutcrackers lining our mantle, a handmade nativity scene made by local villagers in Kazakhstan a beloved friend gave me as a gift years ago, and a fire in the fireplace welcomed a warm Christmas spirit.  My 19-year old loved the idea of no tree this year, relishing in the idea we wouldn’t have to take down decorations or wrap each ornament back in tissue paper,vacuum up prickly tree needles, or figure out what to do with the dead tree.  It also marked a turning point as parents; we’re now parents of a young adult, creating a new way of doing Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we went to a beautiful, jammed packed service at our former church, the pastor delivering an anointed message of Christ’s birth, the beginning of Christ’s ministry of lowering himself as a servant for all — the audacious act of a loving God.  The vocals of a gifted young woman singing heart-filled lyrics of Oh Holy Night, shepharded us into a holy ambiance, filling my heart with an unspeakable joy that comes only with streaming tears:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining
‘Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Fall on your knees
O hear the angel voices
O night divine!
O night when Christ was born
O night divine!
O night, O night divine!

Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name

Christ is the Lord!
Their name forever praise we
Noel, Noel
O night, O night divine!
Noel, Noel
O night, O night divine!
Noel, Noel
O night, O holy night!

Grabbing my arm, my son hooked our elbows together, warming one another as we made our way into the holy, brisk, dark, star-filled night. Singing Silent Night in the car on the way to our Christmas tree-less home, my heart smiled recognizing the perfection of this most special Christmas Eve, an eve steeped in the love and peace of Christ.

On Christmas morning we opened a few simple presents sitting around the fire in our pajamas, lazing around much of the afternoon munching on goodies, later sharing a delicious home-cooked early dinner and chocolate pudding pie for dessert — just the three of us. We’d been in need of this holy, cloistered family bonding.  In the evening my son gave us a private slide show of his summer solo trip to Europe, a grand adventure through Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Italy, including photos and video clips of a twenty mile round trip hike from a mountain hut in the Italian Alps, with stunning snow-capped rocky mountain vistas, close-ups of bright colored wildflowers cracking through ancient rocks, and breathtaking views of a turquoise topaz colored lake nestled between cragged mountains, held like a gem in God’s arms, an ice-cold destination he’d jump in anyway.

Afterward, wearing winter coats, wool beanies and pajamas, we ventured out into the unusually cold San Diego night, taking our yearly drive following a parade of Christmas night drivers, through a neighborhood wonderland of houses lit, one after another, with thousands of twinkling Christmas lights.

I reflect today not only on this Christmas season, but on life met with God-centered hearts, a life where each moment, each day, each holiday, and each year, Faith, Peace, Hope, and Love light our hearts aflame.

With New Years Day around the corner, will you join me in holding 2017 goals loosely, creating first an intention for living a life centered in the perfect heart of Christ?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” James 4:13-15

Leave me alone with God as much as may be.
As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,
Make me an island, set apart, alone with you, God, holy to you.
Then with the turning of the tide,
Prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond,
The world that rushes in on me till the waters come again and fold me back to you. – Aidan of Lindisfarne 

Warmest, Happiest New Year!

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