Be Still

I spent much of yesterday afternoon in 1985, watching a couple of hours of family video which resurrected people long dead and put me in touch with a Christmas long forgotten. Music, presents, decorations, and several nativity layouts got me thinking about the holiday season that is now upon us. The holidays put pressure on us all to celebrate with too much of everything and it often winds up showing us that we don't have enough of anything. Money, time, and creativity all disappear in a frenzy of activity designed to make memories last for a lifetime.

Joy is a laudable goal and this isn't going to be one of those "how to survive the holidays" tirades that suggest that we retire from the cultural madness, go green and save the greenbacks. Rather it's a call to be still in the midst of it all, so that we can remember the uniqueness of the moment and remember the people who touch our lives and the God who lives now and not just the baby who came 2000 years ago.

In looking at the video, it was obvious that people grow up, they change, they move on and disappear. We can't stop the metamorphosis, but what we can do is preserve the experience by infusing each shared moment with God's presence. Even if we don't remember the details, by conversing with God, even briefly, while interacting with others, we have transformed the moment and allowed God to use it for purposes beyond our awareness.

When we bring God into all that we do, think and say, we create, as did a monk who lived in the 1600's, heaven on earth for ourselves. What we await in the future, Brother Lawrence experienced in the present by doing all for God and allowing God to fill each moment with a different perspective, a new insight or simply the experience of God's presence. It was all there for the asking.

I think that we can ask, too, because God shows no partiality. We can birth Christ through a song, a party or a piece of sticky tape on a package all year long. Done with love and an openness to the Holy Spirit, all of our activities are transformational if we bring God into them. It is not just a matter of lifting the day to God in prayer at its start and then going about our business. It is taking the hand of God and walking out into the world as a couple, ready to accomplish all that occurs and conferring with each other as the minutes pass.

Not easy to remember to do, this is the kind of stillness that no Christmas rush can take away.