the days after christmas

The word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.
Missional living…God initiated it.
He designed us for his presence and we f’d it up.
We ran from the intimacy that his walks in the garden gave us.
We embraced fear rather than relationship
We listened to each other’s limited reason rather than that of the creator
And we’ve been wandering away from the garden ever since.

I was thinking about these things this morning
The beauty of the Christmas story…the intimacy of God being born
In the midst of the mess of our real life.
The re-introduction of the intimacy of the Garden.
And really feeling the mess….in my house, my kitchen, in my soul.

I had a day off yesterday …a down day from the busyness of the holidays.
A day of watching movies and not doing much of anything constructive.
That’s always a good thing…to rest and recover after several stressful days in a row
(hudson’s surgery on Tuesday, coming home from the hospital wednesday, finishing shopping on Christmas eve (at 6pm) since I’d procrastinated due to worrying about the surgery )
If I’m honest I was really feeling
a little guilty that I wasn’t creating/hosting anything worshipful for Christmas even though I’d consulted by phone on 2 or 3 christmas events in the last week.

Being a recovering workaholic means that I battle days off…I don’t take enough of them and I don’t always enjoy them when I have them….there’s an old book called” when I relax I feel guilty” and that’s a great title for much of my day yesterday. Too tired to be productive and too guilty to rest.
Here I have to take my own medicine and know that we have lots of time in the next week to rediscover this “God moving into the neighborhood”.

Don’t you think mary needed a break too?
I was thinking about when I had babies…mine were both controlled emergencies so there wasn’t a lot of peace on earth….it was noisy and confusing and fearful…and there were loads of people and then I just wanted to be alone and quiet.
I’ll bet mary felt this way too.  After having a band of shepherds and townspeople crowding around after jesus was born…the trauma of birth itself in a stable not a hospital or even a home! Do you think anyone offered them their home after they saw the baby? Did any of the townspeople make room for them the next day? Or did they just go back to their routines?

I’ll bet mary and joseph needed some time to rest and recover….to get their balance back before starting again. And for me, the wisemen, the magi didn’t get there the first night, or even the second. There was down time, time for getting used to being parents and time to learn how to be with each other with a baby.
Think of the emotions and mood swings….and finding food and shelter…needing a job in a strange town.
And I know mary didn’t want to get back on the road right after giving birth, I know I wouldn’t.

So I’m going to rest, to attempt to recover…to allow jesus to move into the mess and into the days after the 25th and I’m going to continue to prepare him room.

Comments

[Eli Ruggles]

Lilly,
Great post! Can't wait to tell you about our Christmas eve encounter.

Definitely need to hang out again soon!

-Eli

[Tara Eastman]

Lilly,
You were awarded a lovely blog award on my page today! Happy New Year -
Tara