Magic and Miracles - Reflections on the Hero's Journey

This is from a sermon I preached in 2008... yet it is strangely relevant today

“Magic and Miracles”

Exodus 17: 1-7; Psalm 78: 1-4, 12-16; Matthew 21:23-32

                                                          

Raise your hand if the Bible seems like it is about a bunch of people who died a long time ago, whose lives and culture were so different from ours, that we really can't relate.  

Okay.  

Hands down. 

Now raise your hand if you believe that the Bible was written for all people of all time. 

Hands down.  

Thank you.  

Me too.  

You see, both are true for me, depending on the day.  

But one thing I do know is that people are people, no matter what era or culture we live in. And there is a universality about our human condition---a common ground when it comes to our fears, struggles, and longings---that transcends all our cultural and generational differences.  We really aren’t that different from each other, deep down inside.  

Because of that, the stories in the Bible truly can resonate for us today, no matter how different the time and culture may seem to be.

So, in today’s Psalm we heard about “dark sayings of old,” passed down from our ancestors.  In our story from Exodus we see an old man with a staff magically bring water gushing out of a dead, dry rock.  Staffs and magic.  It all sounds like something out of Harry Potter. 

Who knew that Dumbledore was in the Bible?  Or Gandalf, or Merlin?  But think of Moses, with his flowing white beard and great staff of power, struggling to lead a rag-tag group of wanderers on a long and desperate journey.  It’s starting to sound rather similar.

Well, as this is a Swedenborgian church, let’s see what Swedenborg has to say about it all.  .... I looked, but I couldn't find a single remark about Harry Potter in any of Swedenborg’s books.  

But Swedenborg does talk about magic wands.

 

Actually, Swedenborg talks about “correspondences,” which is ancient, ancient wisdom.  The earliest peoples saw the interconnectedness of all things and lived in a constant state of deep spiritual awareness.  This kind of wisdom has been lost for centuries.  We see only traces of it in ancient cultures, like the way the Celts believed that trees had spirits, and the first nation peoples used totem animals to represent different strengths in their tribes, and the way the aboriginals of many lands seem to intuitively know which plants are good for healing.

Moses used a staff (or big magic wand) because of what a staff corresponds to---a staff represents wisdom and power.  Kings held scepters for the same symbolic reason.  Merlin and Gandalf were given staffs because that same ancient knowing is carved so deeply into our imaginations.

A hand, or “right hand” symbolizes a person’s power, and a staff was an extension of that hand. That is why Moses was told to stretch out his staff in order to effect a miracle, like when he parted the Red Sea or brought water from the rock. The wands that we find in the hands of Harry Potter and his friends are the modern day symbolic descendants of the staffs of power. 

A staff also corresponds to wisdom.  That is another reason we see them in the hands of magicians and wise men in fiction.  A staff represents the great knowledge that the wise men had at their disposal.  In the days before widespread education, their unique learning definitely elevated them above the common people, bringing them respect, power, and status.

But there was a difference between Moses and the wise men of Pharaoh.  The difference lies in the way they used their power and knowledge.  Pharaoh’s wise men had access to a lot of ancient knowledge, but they used it to control others.  They knew how to use it to manipulate reality, and in the beginning could copy some of the wonders and signs that Moses did.  They represent the parts of us and times in us when we are not acting from sincere and good motives.  We can fake an awful lot of goodness.  We can make ourselves look kind and loving when inside we are still pretty unkind and selfish.  This lets us practice being good, and learn about the difference between the real and the fake goodness, but it is not meant to be somewhere we stay.  By the time Moses was battling with Pharaoh’s wise men, their fakery represents a way of living that really needs to be left behind.  Moses represents the call to a real integrity--- to living in such a way that our outsides begin to match our insides.  When we are beginning to live from a truly loving place, from the Lord, our “power,” our quality of life, has a sincerity to it that leaves Pharaoh’s faker magicians dumbstruck and helpless.

Moses’ battle with Pharaoh’s wise men is just the beginning of a long journey.  Just like Frodo's journey in The Lord of the Rings and Harry’s journey in the Harry Potter novels, there are a lot of scary things still ahead.  Our heroes simply won’t make it through without the help of wise friends and supernatural forces.  It was the same for the Children of Israel. 

Psychologists who study such archetypal mythologies say that we love such stories precisely because they resonate so strongly with our human experience.  We are all on a quest to become better than we are.  We are all driven to rid ourselves of whatever dark forces haunt us; we are all compelled from the cradle to find our true other, our true love---and to live with a sense of purpose and peaceful belonging.  These longings lie at the core of each one of us with very little variation from person to person.   Deep inside we are not so different from one another.

So you and I are born into our own hero’s journey, and you and I, even now, are on a quest. 

It is the quest for integrity, belonging, and meaning.  It is the quest to our truest self and true home.  

None of us will make it either, without the help of wise friends and supernatural powers.  But with them, we will all make it, no matter how scary and hopeless it sometimes looks.

Now, it may seem as though I’m playing fast and loose with the Bible story here, but bear with me.

If God loves every single one of us with absolute devotion, tenderness and compassion; if God wants us to become more and more content, fulfilled, and blessed for the rest of our lives, then it stands to reason that He will use every resource at hand to give us meaning, inspiration, and courage---yes, even the Harry Potter series.

You are a rare person indeed if you can read the Moses story and find it as magical, fun, and totally cool as some of today’s modern fiction.  But that's okay.  The Bible is a highly sophisticated style of spiritual writing with a whole lot going on, and isn't meant to be modern fiction.  It wasn't designed that way.  It has got too much else it needs to do given its limited context and simple language.  It speaks to a  deeper part of our psyches, if we are to believe Swedenborg, creating lines of communication between us and heaven---between us and God.  It isn't so much meant to entertain us, as to feed us on a deep spiritual level.  It is like a densely nutritional spiritual drink (that sometimes tastes like lawn clippings) where Harry Potter is more like frozen yogurt.  It is okay to prefer modern fiction.  Just try not to dismiss the Bible altogether.  It's cooler than you think.

Now, running with this hero's journey metaphor, if we are indeed on our own quest, then we, too, have devoted and loyal friends; we, too have weak companions who will help us sometimes and betray us other times.  We, too have powerful allies, and a magical, powerful mentor who has this annoying habit of disappearing just when we need him most, but who shows up just in the nick of time to bail us out of scrapes.

Does this resonate with your life?  Think about it awhile.  

Now, for me, I have several pretty cool earthly mentors, but my Gandalf figure is more like my relationship with God.  Sometimes it really feels like God is present, and I feel safe and hopeful and positive, and strangely magical things seem to sweep away the road blocks and monsters in my life.  But other times, God seems completely out of earshot.  Gone.  Unreachable.  Maybe even dead.  And life is pretty hard to get through during those times.

I'm guessing a lot of people feel this way.  At times like this, we have no choice but to go on, though the whole project can seems pretty hopeless.  We tend to think we've done something wrong to make God go away, but that isn't necessarily true.  Sometimes, it is a necessary phase of the journey.  We don’t often realize it, but we tend to grow much stronger during those times.  We develop and hone our God-given strengths, and really learn to cherish our travelling companions as well.  It isn't fun, it definitely isn't comfortable, but we can learn some important personal lessons when we are feeling alone.

The children of Israel whined a lot when things got rough.  They certainly felt like God had abandoned them several times on their journey.  Things got so bad, they were threatening to kill Moses.  They were going to stone him with stones.  Instead, God brought their salvation just in the nick of time, using a stone.  The thing that could have killed Moses became the source of their salvation.  Water from a rock.  Life out of death.  There is layer upon layer of meaning in this simple story.

In our lives, big and small miracles are happening around us all the time, though we often don’t remember to look for them.  And I don’t just mean the miracle of a baby’s birth or a grandchild’s first word.  I don’t even mean the miracle of a completed sermon by Sunday morning.  I mean the sort of strange miracle which we call coincidence, or serendipity---the sort which tends to make us want to sing the theme music from the Twilight Zone.

You know what I’m talking about. 

 

Five years ago, smack in the middle of the absolute worst years of my life, I had pretty much lost my faith in God.  Rotten stuff just kept happening, month after month.  I was really not on speaking terms with whoever was in charge of the universe, if anyone was.  I was too blasted angry.

The thing is, strange things kept happening during those years.  Really strange things that I can only say felt like encouraging nudges from some supernatural presence---I don’t know how else to describe them.  Call them synchronicity.  Call them hocus-pocus, or chalk them up to my wild imagination, but there were enough of them to make me sit back and take notice. 

Sometimes, they were down right silly.  And often, they made me laugh.

Does God communicate with us in such indirect ways?   I don’t know.  But during those hellishly difficult years, coincidence after magical coincidence kept happening.  Nothing that forced me to believe in God, nothing that forced me to let go of the disillusionment---just gentle, often humorous oddities that defied explanation.    Amidst all the chaos and pain, some Divine Being was playing a kazoo, trying to get me to smile.  I felt seen, supported, and almost elbowed in the ribs by some benevolent source.  It was crazy.  I think this was my “manna,” small and sweet, during my wilderness, giving me just enough encouragement to get through another day.

The saying that God never gives us more than we can handle is simply not true.  God frequently lets us go through more than we can handle; it is just never more than God can handle.  And it is never without a purpose for good for everyone involved in the long run. Period.  Never.  I learned a bunch of things during those terrible years---things I don’t think I could have learned any other way.  One thing I needed to realize was that it wasn't God’s job to spare me from pain and suffering.  God’s job is to help you and me grow into the best, most wise and loving people we can be, as far as we will allow it.  Sometimes that involves some pretty uncomfortable experiences, but the pain is never for nothing.  God always hides miracles and gifts amid the rocks along the way. 

So when you go from this place today, I hope you go away encouraged.  God is always working miracles in your life, even though you can’t see his magic wand.  God’s compassion shows up in all sorts of surprising ways if we just remember to look for it.  Call these things coincidence.  Call them serendipity.   Call them what you like, but I call them miracles.  I think they are little post-it notes from God reminding us that we are not alone.  Just wave back, and say “thanks.”

Amen.

Know yourself, and become a blessing

"Go forth from your country, your clan and your parents' house and become a blessing for all the families of the earth." (Gen 12:1)

"Lech lecha," the Hebrew command to "go forth" also means to "walk towards yourself."

So this journey is both outward and inward,

freeing yourself from the conditioning of nationality, tribe, ethnicity, race, gender and religion

and devoting yourself to being a blessing--

a catalyst for justice and compassion

to ALL the families of the earth, human and creation. 

~Rabbi Rami Shapiro~

It keeps coming down to the same thing. 

 

Promoting world peace, compassion, and enlightened relationships starts and ends with me. 

(And YOU.)  

It starts with individual, personal, spiritual work FIRST, which then manifests in effective change in the world.  I must "know myself"---all my vulnerabilities, sensitivities, and "character defects" as well as my gifts, strengths, and areas of shining effectiveness, if I wish to be a blessing.  

I must leave my comfort zone, of feeling inferior.  

I must leave my comfort zone of feeling superior.

I must leave my comfort zone of being sure I have all the answers.

I must leave the comfort zone to which I retreat when I feel too stupid for words.

I must be open and honest, not hiding and manipulative.  

I must accept responsibility but not blame, and be willing to assign responsibility without blaming.  (Blame includes a condemning, dehumanizing quality that presumes the superiority of the blamer.)

So long as I hide, because I am ashamed, I am giving power to the lie that others are better than me.  So long as I believe the lie that I am superior, I invite those for whom I harbour contempt to hide and feel ashamed.

There is a third way that is without hierarchy.

It involves humility and humour, frankness and forgiveness, confession and compassion.  It involves a willingness to lead from my strengths without apology, and to ask for help in my areas of weakness without shame.

I must know myself WELL, in all my beauty and brokenness, and recognize how deeply lovable I am ANYWAY, to help the world manifest that wisdom too.

Do you see yourself completely and love yourself anyway?  (No airbrushing.  No strategic drapings.)  It takes work!

I know that when I can see myself completely, and not allow fear of my unlovability to cloud my vision, I will be my most effective in loving others and intuiting ways to contribute.  I will be a blessing.

And when many of us can do this, the world changes.

peace,

Rev. Alison 

Do We Choose Fear or Love As Our Starting Point?

As the new warmth slowly relaxes and opens the soil, the buds, the hearts, and the faces around me, I am reflecting on two basic approaches to life: fear-based, and love-based.

Right away I can hear the fearful voices clamouring for why the fear-based approach is the needed, necessary, and only way to stay safe in life---the only way to protect ourselves from "other,"  "bad" people, so we can survive.

I want to give a nice, juicy, sedative-laden fly to that protective lizard-part of my brain, and put it back in its cage with a, "thank you for wanting to protect me." ("But shut-up. You're not helping").


It has long been known that anxiety and fear reduce our ability to think rationally and calmly.  To the extent that fear and anxiety are running in our beings, we regress to more primitive coping mechanisms.  We become younger, smaller, dumber, and more impulsive.  This is a deeply built-in evolutionary mechanism that is there to insure our physical survival.  It is literally our "lizard-brain" stepping up to keep us alive.

But so many situations today that may trigger our lizard brain are not about physical survival.  Something we love may feel threatened, but rarely is it a matter of life or death.

We MUST become more self-aware, so we can stay consciously present and non-reactive when something feels threatened, so that we can make (more ) rational choices.  We MUST cultivate an attitude of love, so that our hearts can remain open.

This lizard-brain perspective currently seems to have a strong emotional lobby group on the planet just now, especially in north America.  Just look at the NRA and their message of what is needed, and how emotional it is.  Just at a glance, would you say their insistence on guns and MORE guns is fear-based, or love-based?  Would you say their perspective makes the planet a better, kinder, more reasonable place; or a more segregated, fortress mentality, fearful place?

And which planet do I want to live on?  Which one do you want to live on?

For those who admire and follow Jesus, with his choice to stand and be crucified in his message for love, rather than going to war, where do we imagine Jesus would stand?  What message might he stand behind?

(Can you IMAGINE the United States turning the other cheek after 911 rather than going straight to war?  No.  I can't either.  But I can wish the possibility was even on the table.)

Have the good guys won yet?  Is war solving the problem?  When will we learn from Jesus' and Ghandi's (and Obi-wan Kenobi's, etc. etc.) examples?  Perhaps death of the body is not the worst thing?  Perhaps being personally attacked is not the worst thing?

As I try and try to understand the fearful rhetoric and divisive language, the shouting and blaming and stonewalling in the US AND the Canadian governments, I wonder what is at play in the world just now.  WHY are we so afraid?  And what can I do to make a difference toward DE-escalating the anxiety?


 In spiritual evolutionary theory, we must progress from a black/white, good/evil, linear and hierarchical (fear-based) model to an inclusive, cooperative, growth and healing (love-based) model --- so as to enter into greater wisdom, enlightenment, perspective and the ability to love wisely.  This is a progression, and the black/white model cannot imagine or fathom the inclusive model any more than a caterpillar can imagine being a butterfly.  It also feels threatened by the inclusive model.  It cannot imagine how the inclusive model will include it too.  But it will.  With love.

In any case I am choosing to stand for peace for one more day.  I am willing to be crucified (gossip, blame, hatred, contempt, character assassination) for one more day --- alongside so many other wise and loving souls.  

We are not alone in our stand for love.

We will never stop standing for love.

love always wins.
Rev Alison

Time For Hope and Inspiration

I find this truly inspirational. May you be inspired too. Consider subscribing to this young man's feed. Peace and blessings as you go out into your day.

Radical Honesty; Radical Self-Compassion

I was recently on a site for life coaches in training, and one coach posted this question: 

"Three words came to me as I was coaching an individual yesterday to overcome their fear and calm their anxiety. The three words that I shared with the client were:

1. Confident ! , 2. Joyful ! , 3. Powerful !

I would like to hear from you what Three Words you have found  as a coach that inspire others?"

My response comes straight from my heart, and current personal experience.... As someone who periodically visits discouragement, apathy, and hopelessness, (aka right now.  Let's hear it for radical honesty!) I have been reflecting on what it might be that will sustain me when I'm face-down in the mud with a boot in my back. 

What sustains me most at such times are messages from my coach that say: 

1) they've been here too, and 

2) know how hard it is, and 

3) to hold on, keep breathing, and remember that I'm not alone. That this will, indeed, pass.

Then I go to tapping: "Even though I feel hopeless, apathetic, and discouraged, I deeply love and approve of myself anyway...."

Let's be fair: sometimes focusing on positive qualities to which I aspire is just what I need.  (I picture that YouTube video of the tiny girl on the bathroom sink punching the air and saying, "I love my WHOLE HOUSE! I can do ANYTHING....!") 

But sometimes chanting positive qualities just sinks me deeper into the mud, because of the gap between where I wish I was and where I am.

Sorry to be a devil's advocate. 

Confident! Joyful! and Powerful! are amazing words, and could work wonders, if I had any part of my psyche that could grab and hold on to them. Sometimes I don't even have that. (Hmmm. Perhaps my market niche will be coaching the really hard cases?)

Dark humour sometimes is far more powerful than "thinking positively," in my case.

So, for those like me, here are some wonderful bits of dark humour that have gotten me through the blacker times:

Things are darkest, just before ... they go completely black.

What doesn't kill you, just makes you ... wish you were dead.

When God closes a door, he opens a window ... to give you something to jump out of.

The light at the end of the tunnel ... is just a train coming.

We are born naked, wet, and hungry; then things get worse.

So when the platitudes and aphorisms are setting your teeth grinding, have a couple of these in your pocket.  They can brighten the day tremendously.  Anybody have others to share?

Ya gotta love humour.  

The God I believe in has a brilliant sense of humour and approves of this message.

Hang in there!

Alison

Heal Yourself

With permission, I share this posting from a treasured mentor:

"My thoughts on the tragedy in Newtown:

My heart hurts for the parents who have lost their children. Sunday night, Obama shared my favorite quote about parenting: 'when you decide to have a child, you make the decision to have your heart forever walk around outside your body.' Their loss is more profound than we will ever know. I pray for their courage.

This is a clarion call to all of us.

We are impacting our children, every last one of us and it's time we woke up to the epidemic that is sweeping our nation. Too many parents are distracted, too many single moms and dads don't have the support they need, too many adults have not healed their own wounds and so they pass their damage on to their children like karmic sludge. We subject our children to a culture dominated by fear (news, video games, movies) and then wonder what the dang problem is. The problem is not "out there", it's "in here".

          Here’s my wish for us all, that we:

Wake up, out of our comfortably numb state, and start to really get the horrifying legacy we are leaving with our children and on this planet.

Feel the pain we’ve been avoiding, the pain of our inner child that didn’t get what he or she needed and love that part with powerful conviction, with the ferocity of a mama or papa bear. Let go of any desire to be driven to the next distraction, drama or adrenaline rush and just be with yourself.

Take fierce, bold action, from a place of wholeness.

If you want to make an impact and not have these children (and their protectors) die in vain, then commit to healing you, to healing your own inner child. From there, you will know the exact perfect action to take. Anything before that will be saving and saving never works. It’s rooted in imbalance.

I pray you will let this tragedy be the wake up call you needed to make the difference you came here to make with your life.

Share with me your thoughts, feelings and ideas about this tragedy, the state of our disconnectedness in our country and anything else you feel you want to share….even if it’s simply an “amen sister”.

So much love,

Kristin Sweeting Morelli"

https://www.facebook.com/kristin.morelli.1?fref=ts

http://goddessrising.com

http://kristinsweetingmorelli.com/2012/12/thoughts-newtown-tragedy/

What the Heart Knows

“What the Heart Knows”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Dec 11^th, 2012

New Church Live Christmas Vespers

Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania

Arcana Caelestia 30; Luke 1:39-47

Luke 1:39-47 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,  where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!  But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord   and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

Arcana Caelestia 30. When someone is being regenerated, their spirituality develops as follows: First they start to learn about spiritual things, which they have then in their memory. This is “fact-based” or “rules-based” spirituality. Then, after they have thought about things for awhile and have lived with the ideas for awhile they develop a deeper understanding, which is theory-based spirituality. Finally, a true spirituality comes from the heart, which is genuinely loving.

Our text tonight is from Mary’s Song of Praise, also known as “The Magnificat.”  We find it in the Gospel of Luke right after Elizabeth greets Mary.  The gospel of Luke is a gospel of contrasts, of rich and poor, of priests and peasants, of men and women, of the educated and the working class.  Tonight I wish to focus in particular on what Mary represents.  Mary, the young, poor, peasant woman, yet in whom the son of God is conceived and to whom God incarnate can be born.

            Mary represents the feminine, or heart side of our inner nature.  Mary is the side of life that is typically discounted, pushed aside, and silenced in our culture.  Mary is the quiet whisper of our heart, especially when it challenges the status quo. Mary represents the stuff we just know without being able to explain.   Mary is the mystical, the unscientific, the stuff that we are afraid to trust, yet the part of us that somehow knows what is going on well before it makes sense.           

Let’s look once more at the gospel story.  Again and again it is the unsophisticated, marginalized characters that accept the angels’ wonderful news and welcome the divine immediately, while the privileged and educated and powerful come around much more slowly.  Zacharias –as an old man and a priest--- represents our intellectual side.  He struggles to accept the news of John’s birth.  In fact, he asks the angel for proof.  He wants evidence.  His proof comes in his being rendered speechless until after the miracle is accomplished.  In contrast, young, uneducated Mary simply asks for reassurance from the angel. She then moves right into acceptance and ultimately sings the song of praise which contains tonight’s text.  

Then, when Jesus is born, it is the shepherds who first see the angels and hear the good news.  Shepherds at that time in Judean culture were the bottom of the pecking order: poor, uneducated, and the least respected among the working class. Yet the good news comes first to them!  Something about them makes them ready to receive it before any other group.  And they respond instantly and with full acceptance, rushing to see the newborn baby. In contrast, the Wise Men---representing our intellectual side---see a remote star, and have to figure out how to travel the tremendous distance required to find the newborn.  They even have to stop and ask for directions---it takes a Wise Man to have the humility to stop and ask for directions….  In any case, the Wise Men do finally arrive, bearing tremendous gifts, but not until LONG after the shepherds do.   And isn't it interesting that the shepherds brought only the gift of their presence, and it was enough?

Later, when Jesus rises, who comes first to the tomb?  It is the women of the story, with courage and tears.  The men---remember, that means the intellectual side of you and me, not men ---that side of us takes longer to figure out and accept what has happened.  Doubting Thomas represents the last hold-out in you and me against trusting anything not evidence-based.  He is not wrong.  He is still one of the disciples!  He is part of the story.  But yes, we are blessed when we can trust and see and follow more quickly than fearful, doubting Thomas.

Please remember, I am not saying that women are better or smarter than men.  Each gender has strengths and gifts, and each gender has weaknesses, the same way the two hemispheres of our brain have strengths and weaknesses, and the two sides of our human nature has strengths and weaknesses.   Besides, not all women fit the classic female stereotype, nor do all men fit the classic male stereotype.  Praise the Lord! We need these boundary-bending examples to keep us from getting too comfortable with easy categories. 

It is not our fault that we struggle to find balance between our thinking side and our feeling side.  And it certainly doesn't help if we make one side bad and the other side good, or one side better and the other side worse.  Both are good.  Both are gifts.  Both are beautiful and necessary for our regeneration.  Even the parts of our nature that won’t fit easily into head or heart categories are gifts too.  Never forget it.

I can easily find stories from my personal life when my heart rushed ahead and left my intellect struggling along behind, just like we see in so much of the Christmas narrative.  An example: When I go to my alternative health care provider---my naturopath or my energy worker---I leave my intellect in the car.   The scientific, logical side of my nature can’t make sense of the flakey, illogical “unscientific” stuff that happens in those offices.  “What do you mean, ‘energy work?’” my inner Spock wants to know.  The intuitive, experiential, or the “Mary” half of my nature knows that these forms of care make a difference---often a profound difference---to my health whether or not there are scientific explanations of “how” that satisfy my left brain.  So my intellect stays in the car, or it goes in a closet and puts on loud music.  My intellect just doesn't understand that flakey stuff and can't watch.  Do you have similar examples from your life?

But before we believe that this scenario is the only legitimate one, I can tell stories of my intellect being super clear on something while my heart is still struggling along behind.  An example might be how I feel terrified of spiders despite knowing with my whole head that they are much tinier than me and not even poisonous in this area of the world.  They are completely benign!  But my emotions when I encounter a spider remain fairly primitive.  Because it isn't about what I believe.  Pre-rational emotion just takes over. It is all kind of funny --- once I’m done shrieking and can come down off the chair.

The point is that this imbalance between our intellect and feeling-side is normal.  It is how we are made.  It is not our fault.  It really is rather funny, one we get over stressing about it.  And it is God’s promise to us that one day these two very different sides of our natures will be united.  One day we will become so integrated in our loving and our thinking that we scarcely notice the negotiations between the two sides, let alone find the discrepancies so comically wide.

For tonight, it might just help us to remember that when God comes to us be born anew, there will probably be a big part of us that has no idea what is going on and wouldn't believe it if it knew.  The same way our science-loving culture tends to discount or invalidate the mystical and intuitive, the seemingly impossible and miraculous occurrences in our lives, you and I individually may easily doubt and question any evidence that God is indeed being born into your individual heart and life.   Yes; into yours.  Into mine.

But shifts do happen in our spirits as we grow closer to God.  The same as in the Christmas story, our spiritual growth is lead first by intuition and innocence.  “Why did you decide to stop in at that particular church, or pick up that particular book?”  But our intellect quickly takes the lead as facts and information accumulate.  Unfortunately, the intellect can be kind of clueless when it comes to feelings and intuition.  Sadly, once in charge, the intellect often invalidates feelings and intuition because it isn’t well designed to understand them and can feel a little threatened by them.  It happens all the time, and isn’t very helpful.  Intuition guides the intellect to what it needs, and then the intellect acts like it was in charge all the time and intuition is dumb.  Oh well.

In any case, for much of our spiritual journey we are more likely to be lead by ideas and concepts than by gut feelings and instinct.  That is okay.  That is how God designed the process of learning to happen for most of us.  This shows up in the Bible as Jacob taking pre-eminence over Esau, and as the stone temple replacing the soft, tent-like tabernacle.

But the same way Jacob wasn’t supposed to have contempt for or fear of Esau, we need to do our best to remember the strengths and gifts that our intuitive side brings to our life.  Our intellect can have a tendency to want to hoard and hold on to power, and to fear and invalidate the mystical, fluid, hard-to-box-up-and-measure qualities of our emotional side.  In the end, Esau will take his rightful place, but in the bulk of the Bible, Jacob’s story gets the limelight.

Our culture here in the West still remains pretty uncomfortable with feelings.  We have been told there are good feelings and bad feelings, excessive feelings, and inappropriate feelings.  But in the realm of psychology and therapy it has been known for a long time that there are no wrong feelings.  There can be hurtful behaviors, but all feelings are appropriate and make sense when we understand what drives them.  Our feelings can be amazingly wise teachers when we listen to them.  They point directly to the wounded parts and invite healing.  But for tonight just remember: feelings are never wrong.  They simply are.  Even if that concept drives the intellect crazy.  Accepting emotions and working with them works much better than judging and controlling them.

Your heart knows what it knows.  It is incredibly wise.  It doesn’t have to explain.  What it knows may not be easy to understand, rather like a virgin birth; but without our hearts, Jesus cannot be born.  By means of Mary, into a simple, mucky stable, full of humble, smelly animals, our God rushes with new life and light.  Birth is messy and perfect. Let us sing for joy.  Amen

Guided meditation 

Welcome to this holy and sacred and safe space.  I ask you to be still for these next few moments.  To pull up a stool and to sit by the manger, and to gaze into the eyes of the newborn God of the whole universe. This, our God, has come down right here, right now, into our tender and insecure lives.

Like the stable animals, all feelings are welcome here.  No one said, “the donkey isn't good enough or clean enough to be here,” no one said, “The camel is too noisy and grumpy to be here.”  God comes to us exactly as we are, how we are, and doesn't reject any parts of us as too unworthy to be present right where he is born. 

Just be here, no matter how you are feeling, or what you are thinking.  You are welcome here.  Perhaps this Christmas you are full of wonder and joy---the “right” feelings to be having this time of year.  But perhaps, like so many, you are feeling loss or deep sadness; you may be dealing with fresh and new grief, or perhaps old and aching losses from years past.  There is no wrong story to bring to the manger.  Whatever feelings press forward are the ones that most need the healing love that this infant brings.  Do not forbid them.  And no matter what feelings come, remember that you are not alone.  You are surrounded by love.  Tears are welcome here. 

As we sit and soak up the peace and the love and the complete acceptance that this new infant brings to our world, be accepting of every feeling.  Perhaps you are feeling anxious about time, or about money, or about choices that loved-ones are making.  You are normal, especially for this time of year, in this culture and economy.   I ask you just to be here.  Be here, and release self-judgment if you can.  Let’s all of us take a breath together. 

Sheep, goats, camels, chickens, angels….  Just for now, set your worries, judgments and distractions aside.  Put them down, in a box.  They will wait.  Just be here. Right here, right now, with people who love you, and want the best for you, and who are committed to walking beside you no matter what.  This community is where Jesus can be born.  Our Lord Jesus, Emanuel, God with us, is here, now.  Breathe this in. 

Glory to God in the highest, and deep peace to every human heart on earth.  Amen