The Journey of Prayer at Christmas: "Threshold," December 24

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by trevorappleton

The Twelve Days of Christmas are largely forgotten today. If they are remembered, they’re remembered as a song about “Lord’s a leaping,” and “partridges in a pear tree.” The Twelve Days, December 25-January 5, are the true Christmas, the Christmas not of preparation for a single holiday, but of opening our hearts increasingly to the Absolute, the Ultimate, the Eternal Light of God---the Beloved, who gives life to all things by the fire of love.  

These Twelve Days are also an invitation to an intensified spiritual awareness. We seek to open further to the Light come into the world in Emmanuel, God-With-Us. And so, the Twelve Days are a journey into prayer, into the presence of God, into the heart of Love. It's a season set at the beginning of the year that helps deepen our experience with God in the midst of daily life, embracing the sacred, dwelling in love, in the midst of the most ordinary tasks---answering emails and grocery shopping, sitting in staff meetings and doctor's offices, washing dishes and running kids here and here.

At the beginning of the Twelve Days stands the birth of Christ—that great eruption of light into the ordinariness of human life, a slowly expanding fire kindled at the crossroads between East and West, North and South. The end of these Twelve Days hosts the celebration of Epiphany, a word that means “manifestation” in Greek. Epiphany centers on the story of the wise men, or Magi, who journeyed from the east to welcome the Christ. 

The Magi stand for those who come to the Light, those awakened by the Light—enlightened in the true sense of the word. They stand for those who return to their daily lives changed, bearers of the Light—agents of compassion, justice, and love—wherever they may be.

The posts this next Twelve Days will be a companion to whatever kind of journey you'd like to take into these twelve transformative days.  In reality, these Twelve Days are only a beginning---a taste---of the much longer, lifelong journey that's yours.  And truth is, the journey God has for you is much more than what you have planned for yourself as you start out.  

So, welcome to this journey.  And may the blessing of angels and saints--and the Magi themselves--rest upon you as you set out on this sacred path.   

An Intention:  Today, Christmas Eve, I begin my journey into prayer.  I turn from all the preparations for Christmas, and instead of closing the door on Christmas as so many will in the next two days, I open my heart to the Absolute, the Ultimate, the Eternal Light of God, the Beloved, willing to go wherever this light of love should lead me, willing to become whatever the Light would make of me.

An Advent meditation (video)

Advent is so routinely overshadowed by Christmas.  The crush of activity around us runs roughshod over the slow-down our souls need to allow Advent to knead grace deep into the soft tissue of our lives.   Here's a visual meditation that'll help you enter the holy season more slowly and with the necessary awe to get Christmas right (or nearly so) when it finally comes.

How to leave a lasting legacy: die well

How will you die? I don’t mean what will kill you; I mean what will be the character of your life in those final days before your passing?

Of course, we don’t have much control over when and how we’ll die. A few of us will go quickly, without much warning or preparation. But most of us will have some time, and our wits about us, for a few days, a handful of weeks, six or more months of living with a terminal illness, maybe more.

The centuries-old Book of Common Prayer contains a prayer that says, “Lord, spare me from dying suddenly and unprepared.” Most of us today want the opposite. “Take me quick, Lord.”

But when we go quickly, we miss the opportunity to die well. And the ability to die well gives us the opportunity to leave a lasting legacy.

I have a friend whose mother’s dying. She’s lived with dying for seven months. But the fact of her dying didn’t mean she stopped playing tennis, going to the opera, visiting with friends, and nurturing her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. She’s dying well. Last month she took her four adult children to Ireland for one last trip together. Last weekend, she took the whole family (dozens of them) to the opera . . . “Because I love it.” And now that she’s stopped eating, she’s started blessing each and every one of her kin . . . with intention. She’s dying well, really well.

So, if you’re “spared from dying suddenly and unprepared,” how will you spend your last days?

If you don’t take this question seriously, you’ll do very little to prepare yourself for dying. Then when death comes for you, you’ll not be able to live big, give love, let go with dignity, and as you do, inspire, empower, and envision others to live their lives with some special gift that comes from your dying. And if you can’t live well when you’re dying, I wonder how well you’re really living now.

Intention: Today, I’ll consider the kind of person I’d like to be when I’m dying. Then I’ll begin to live in such a way that when the end comes, I’ll have something beautiful in my soul to pass on to others. God, make it so that when I’m dying I can give to others some gift to help them live well so that when they find themselves at death's door, they can pass on gifts of grace to others. 

Be still and know . . . a video meditation

This contemplative meditation and its prayer comes from Psalm 46:10 of the Hebrew Scriptures: “Be still and know that I am God.” Use this prayer to try and draw yourself and others into a contemplative frame of mind. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be.

Lifestyle imbalance and learning to live resiliently

"I feel so scattered." "Overwhelmed." "Like I'm constantly running." Twice in one day, two people, independent of one another--a man and a woman--blurted out that they feel like they're living in the midst of perpetual whitewater--a state of lifestyle imbalance.

They're both high-functioning professionals, extremely busy and highly competent. But they're dissatisfied. More than that, they're just plain worn out. They feel like they're sucking air, their souls tattered and frayed.

Both told me they want a more balanced life.

I get that. I want that too. But increasingly I wonder if balance is possible. I think it's possible to cultivate an inner sense of balance, but I don't think it's realistic to assume we can dwell their much of the time. And I think it's unhelpful to our souls to think we can. If we do, we end up always frustrated because we can't get to where we think we ought to be, except on vacations--and those are few and far between.

Instead, I think it's more realistic and spiritually helpful to develop a sense of resiliency.

Resiliency is the ability for a substance or object to spring back into shape. For us that means we have the ability to return quickly to our center, our spiritual core whenever we're pushed and pulled away from that center.

This is, incidentally, what I see in the life of Jesus. Active, engaged, even often extremely busy, and sometimes faced with enormous difficulties. But life for Jesus wasn't some escape from the world. Instead, he knew his center. He lived from his core. He knew how to return there quickly whenever life knocked him around.

Intention: Today, I'll make a conscious effort to stop bemoaning my busyness. Instead, I'll take a few moments to connect with God and then throughout the day, I'll return to that center whenever I find myself pushed and pulled outside myself.