The first day of Christmas: Calling us in
On pilgrimages, spiced wine, church bells and aching hearts
This post is part of this year’s 12 Days of Christmas Contemplations, a journey into the heart of Christmas for dancing monks and weary pilgrims given freely from our heart to your’s… If you wish give a gift in return, do consider becoming a paying subscriber, inviting some one in, or gifting this gift as a gift :-).
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Dear fellow traveler,
We greet you on this first day of Christmas. And a Merry Christmas to you!
It is warm in Minnesota and something feels off about that. It reminds me to Christmas in Berlin last year, and I will tell you a little story about it. But first a confession:
Every year again I think I am done with Christmas. What is it all with this Christmas tradition anyway? Every year again I try to make sense of this story and every year I fall short again.
For many, Christmas Eve feels like the climax of too much of everything. Too much Christmas music, too much cookies, too many expectations.
And still, every year it gently pulls me back in.
Many of you have let me know some of what is on your heart this season (Please continue to do so. It helps me in walking along side you!). While I write, I am thinking of the one who offers herself this journey as a gift after a busy season. The one who arrives feeling whittled down and seeking reprieve. And I am thinking about the many losses you have endured. Family gatherings which needed to be canceled because of Covid, loss of loved ones.
I too, am particularly weary this season. I tried going to church, silent night candle light and all. And still, there is this veil of sadness too heavy to lift.
May be it is the pilgrimage resistance? Do you know such a thing? You want to do the journey but you do not want to walk the walk?
May be our hearts are heavy aching under an aching world? From too much journeying through difficult years, from too many pictures from a pained Bethlehem under occupation, bombs falling near by and constant fear?
How shall we ever be joyful again?
So, dear traveler, I see you. You are welcome here. Your heavy heart is welcome here. Your anxious heart is welcome here. Your hopeful heart is welcome here. Let’s walk this walk together. Let’s hold each other in sacred embrace. We do not travel alone.
Here is a practice for you on this first day. Read slowly. Or read aloud to yourself (monastics call this sacred reading). Let a sentence capture your attention. Chew on it. Mark it. Share it with us.
The bells calling us in
Last year we spent Christmas Eve in Berlin, Germany, and it was also a mild and rainy day. We ended up at one of the last Christmas markets still open on Christmas Eve, filled with travelers who enjoyed being away from home and probably also from the commitments which come with it. Instead they sipped spiced wine and walked the rainy streets of Berlin, ready for another exploration. Somehow we felt quite at home with these strangers from across the world, people who decided the streets would be their home on this Christmas Evening.
Wasn’t the holy family traveling, too? And weren’t the streets packed with travelers and the hotels filled? I guess there have been folks out on the streets in ancient Bethlehem sharing some food and wine at dinner time. (Yesterday I wrote about the empty and “silent” streets of Bethlehem I experienced in the Holy night and how they might lay bare this season.)
The bells of Berlin Cathedral, a home to me, where for many years I sang in the choir, ringing in Christmas Eve.
And while I was still wondering how these long practiced Christmas rituals we grew up with could be filled with new life again, the bells of Berlin started to ring, ringing in the Christmas night. One church joined the other. Deep, loud sounds entering in. It took our breath away. We stood, we danced, we laughed, we cried. Just listening to these big bells across the city broke our hearts wide open.
What are the bells calling us to?
Some might associate not so good feelings with bells ringing. We do miss the bells here in our little town. But more important is what the bells stood for us right there and then. For a present moment, when heaven and earth meet. When transcendence breaks in into our ordinary life. Often unexpected. As it was not the dim lit churches or silent night singing which got to us. It was instead staying at the margins, looking in.
Aren’t these moments sacred? Often they are rare. When our perception melts space and time before us and we enter the present time.
Did we feel bad for skipping church that Holy Night? Not really. Our hearts were just where they needed to be. The bells ringing and calling us into the moment when the heavens reach onto the earth. And frankly spending the Holy night with strangers did not feel so strange to us anymore.
So we hung out some more with the “shepherds on the fields,” warming our hands at the fire before I sat down on a hay bale to nurse my toddler to sleep (I know that sounds a bit kitchey, but I kid you not, it was just like that!)
Culture obscures and enhances our experience of the holy. It comes with both burden and blessings. To find Christmas where we are, we need some courage to fill the old with new life – to make it ring, for us, again. Then Christmas will find us at the most unexpected places. Or in some in-between space.
Taking Courage: Let’s go to Bethlehem, within
This journey comes with a warning. We will indeed go on a pilgrimage. Your feet will ache and you will get tired midway in. Things will happen you do not expect. Your heart will be cracked open if you let it. Starting to walk the streets to Bethlehem within, you will notice that we are on a pilgrimage to the heart of the Divine stable. We walk different paths but we are on the same way. To the interior dwelling place.
If you wonder how this journey will unfold, there is a yearly rhythm to it, and then there is the content which just unfolds by our walking. The rhythm leads us from the Christmas Day towards the thin place where the new and the old year meet, this year on a Saturday. There we will invite you into a self guided retreat to collect the year. Followed by a holy pause on Sunday, the last day of the waning year. From there we are on our way to Epiphany, following the star and where it will lead us. We hope we will all find our Bethlehem just as the wise (wo)men did.
So let the bells of Berlin invite you in, dear fellow traveler, call you in, not into a church but onto a journey, a journey to the stable where the Divine gift lies.
Come grieving heart, come lonely heart, come busy hearts, come hopeful heart. Come, seeking heart.
Come.
Come and journey with us. Come and be with us. Come with what you have. We will sort it out.
A Blessing
May Christmas find you where you are
Do not be afraid of the night
for night is when the light shines brightly
do not be afraid of the silence
for it is the silence in which God speaks
do not be afraid of solitude
for it is the openness where Divine grace enters
do not be afraid of the journey
for it is only the journey that brings us home -
You are not seeking Christmas, Christmas is seeking you.
AF
And may Christmas find you, where you are.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for walking. Thank you for leaving your heart :-)
Almut
May we all be surprised by the Real breaking in through the noise or the silence or the pain, pointing us to the Presence always within and all around us.
It’s almost 2 oclock on Christmas Day…my mother is sleeping and I am deciding to go for a walk in a park in the rain. In the silence I will be open myself to the voice that might be asking me to listen and in the solitude; hope for the grace to help me make my way home. Emmanuel.