Giving birth to the Holy

...and the time came for her to be delivered...Luke 2.6

Impending birth is riveting. The pain is offset by the ecstatic thrill that the child you have carried for nine months will soon be in your arms. And so it is each year as we wait to give birth to the Holy. Jan Richardson says, "The celebration of Christ's birth beckons us to consider what has lain dormant in our own lives and what new life lies waiting beneath the surface."* Where are we preparing to give birth to God this Christmas, for as Meister Eckhart said, "God is always needing to be born."?

But we can't forget the pain. What will hurt as we bring this new life, this new way of being and living and loving into the world? And what will the Holy we bring into the world look like? Hospitality, Justice, Truth, Forgiveness, Peace?

As we count down the hours until the sun sets on this Christmas Eve, may we make our final preparations of our hearts and our homes for giving birth to the Holy. All Mary had was a food trough and some animals, but her spirit rejoiced and she knew that God had done great things for her and Holy was God's name. May that knowledge fill each of us so that we not only give birth, but are born anew this Christmas.

Pregnant Madonna by Ben Long, Saint Mary's Episcopal Church, West Jefferson, NC

*Night Visions: Searching the shadows of advent and christmas, Jan Richardson, 1998