SPIRIT Blog
A Compassionate Light
Dear Reader,
This season is full of meaningful traditions. The rituals we enact in our gatherings are rich with the symbolism of light in the longest of nights. In the Northern Hemisphere, we celebrate the winter solstice, the apex of quietness for creatures great and small as food sources lessen and the sun becomes scarce. The world can seem fragile, and, partly because of the ways that we humans continue to over-inhabit our eco-communities, many small creatures may not be able to make it through the winter anymore due to starvation. It can seem like a mean time, especially a little further North.
So we gather with candles in the bleak midwinter and tell the story of the persistence of Life: a child born in the night whose living would embody the primal Life-Light with grace and truth. This teacher would remind us of things we already knew at a soul level, like: how to consider the creatures around us with compassion as a way to understand God’s heart; how to heal ourselves and our communities with grace; how to return to our Loving Source for rebirth and fresh direction; how to dream equality and practice holistic community; and how an awareness of the inner/outer relationship between violent or compassionate thoughts and actions toward ourselves and others may be the richest teaching of all. These are the teachings of Light, and the winter solstice offers us enough nighttime for a quiet attentiveness to the gift of shared Life that is at the heart of Christ’s Way of Love.
I would like to invite us this Christmas to try a new tradition alongside the usual goodwill gestures toward other folk: Consider the little ones around us – the flora and fauna of God’s good kin-dom. Do something compassionate for them in your shared patch of the earth on Christmas Day, and take a moment to be mindful of the promise this Child of Light gave us: “As we provide for the least of these, so too will our Creator provide for us.”
May all of us creatures, great and small, experience a compassionate Christmas this year.
Glad you’re there,
Rev. Pressley
A Compassionate Light
Dear Reader,
This season is full of meaningful traditions. The rituals we enact in our gatherings are rich with the symbolism of light in the longest of nights. In the Northern Hemisphere, we celebrate the winter solstice, the apex of quietness for creatures great and small as food sources lessen and the sun becomes scarce. The world can seem fragile, and, partly because of the ways that we humans continue to over-inhabit our eco-communities, many small creatures may not be able to make it through the winter anymore due to starvation. It can seem like a mean time, especially a little further North.
So we gather with candles in the bleak midwinter and tell the story of the persistence of Life: a child born in the night whose living would embody the primal Life-Light with grace and truth. This teacher would remind us of things we already knew at a soul level, like: how to consider the creatures around us with compassion as a way to understand God’s heart; how to heal ourselves and our communities with grace; how to return to our Loving Source for rebirth and fresh direction; how to dream equality and practice holistic community; and how an awareness of the inner/outer relationship between violent or compassionate thoughts and actions toward ourselves and others may be the richest teaching of all. These are the teachings of Light, and the winter solstice offers us enough nighttime for a quiet attentiveness to the gift of shared Life that is at the heart of Christ’s Way of Love.
I would like to invite us this Christmas to try a new tradition alongside the usual goodwill gestures toward other folk: Consider the little ones around us – the flora and fauna of God’s good kin-dom. Do something compassionate for them in your shared patch of the earth on Christmas Day, and take a moment to be mindful of the promise this Child of Light gave us: “As we provide for the least of these, so too will our Creator provide for us.”
May all of us creatures, great and small, experience a compassionate Christmas this year.
Glad you’re there,
Rev. Pressley