“This night holds so much light and darkness, joy and grief, welcome and loss, hope and despair, dreams realized and dreams lost, and on this night and in the year to come through it all you hold us, ushering us into a new year
where your presence, grace, and love, forgiveness, and redemption never wavers.”
David and Charlette discuss what it means that the Word became flesh from this week’s gospel reading, it’s implications for our spiritual lives, and what conversations at home will be like
We continue our series on the diaconate with the Ven. Janet Tidwell, Archdeacon in the diocese of Atlanta
“Let’s catch up. There was Christmas, the Feasts of St. Stephan and St. John, the horror of Holy Innocents, (not over yet. Think U.S./Mexican border), and we have Circumcision and Epiphany yet to go. But now it is just plain “Saint” Monday. Let’s look at 1 Kings 17:17-24 and John 4:46-54. They are both healings. The first by Elijah, the second by Jesus.”
Art has a power to move us in ways that intellectual knowledge or physical action cannot do. Music, stories, performance and visual art somehow manage to connect us with feelings buried deep inside ourselves, or in empathy with others beyond us.
“It is here on earth, in this world of corruption, evil, sorrow and darkness, that Christ meets us and claims us. When we receive him — when we see everything that exists in the light of a transformative love — we become children not of the desires and needs of the ego but of God.”
The Incarnation speaks as much about what human life means as it does about God’s power
We look back on the stories of 2019 and peer ahead to 2020.
“God, bless the children. Comfort and keep them wherever they are and whatever their circumstances. Help those of us who could help find the way to do so quickly, before they have to suffer more than they already have. Change the hearts and minds of those who not only order such punishment on the innocents but who think it’s the best solution to whatever problem they think exists.”
“The oplatek tradition may have made its way into our family because of my parents and grandparents, but I am developing a love of it for how it gives us all the task of considering the blessings we hope for others. From those who seem to be in authority, down to the children we often perceive to be mostly recipients of what we provide, we all need each other’s thoughtful blessing.”