Good morning…
I am taking my time dismantling December this year. I ponder meaningful memories as I quietly pack up our decorations. From December 2021, I am savoring many firsts.
I cherish the photos from a gathering in Ohio with twenty-two of our extended family members the weekend before Thanksgiving (the first time we were all together since COVID began). I loved creating my first live Christmas wreathe with a friend, a wreathe that has now faded with the falling leaves.
I shared “Sue’s Symbols of the Soul” at my first Holiday Market (from the proceeds God gave me the honor of being the highest donor of the sale, as I joyfully shared $500 with Blue Skies Ministries). I adored our Advent women’s retreat at Ignatius House the first weekend in December (focusing my heart on the Christ child in this special way may become an annual tradition for me). We magically filled one hundred gift bags for police officers to deliver to the senior citizens in the Grove Park neighborhood of our community and raised $800 for PAWkids staff to deliver handwritten notes and Target gift cards to the hardworking teachers at the Kipp Metro Atlanta Schools. Our family’s first Christmas-trip-instead-of-presents was a huge success, bringing lots of relaxed bonding and great memories to cherish. We celebrated Steve’s first and only fifty-ninth birthday before I welcomed many into Northside’s Christmas Eve services. Our family of six enjoyed worshiping together at our oldest kids’ church the Sunday after a very zen Christmas day.
As I pack up decorations, discard uneaten sweets, and savor the memory of firsts dancing in my head, I am wondering how I will keep the light of the Christ child from fading and falling away.
The Spirit nudges me back to the book we finished studying together this December, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation by Ruth Haley Barton. On page 162 I read:
“I don’t know about you, but I yearn for the freedom and beauty of a life that is completely oriented to the reality of God. I long to experience my soul hidden and content in the very depths of God, so that what is seen on the surface is transformed and energized by what takes place in those depths. The choice to orient our life to God’s transforming presence is always ours, sacred rhythms help us to say yes to this desire, day by day by day.”
Ask me not where I live
or what I like to eat…
Ask me what I am living for
and what I think is keeping me from living fully for that.
– Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Growing from a newborn infant into a maturing man of God, the living Christ embodies God’s transforming presence. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of (John 10:10a, MSG).
As we dismantle December 2021, may we continue to live fully for that which is real and eternal. Amen.
…Sue…
P.S. If you need help physically dismantling this Christmas season in your home, today is the final day to text our son Jeremiah.
Christmas Tree Removal
Our names are Jeremiah Allen and Cole Pisowicz; we are sophomores at the University of Georgia. If you need your Christmas tree hauled away, please contact us. We charge $10 per tree and $20 to take down lights/ornaments and haul the tree away. All the trees are recycled into mulch.
Thank you,
Jeremiah (404-747-4971)
