Third week of advent - Sunday

The Christmas story has become one of enchantment. It is the best of the genre of fairy tales. It is about a baby being born in a barn who was sent by God to save the world from its original sin. Alleluia. The angels rejoice and Kings bring gifts and shepherds adore.

What about the mother? She was a teen age mom. This was her first pregnancy and delivery. She was in midst of a journey when she goes into labor.

According to the story she agreed to all this when the angel Gabriel told her, an unmarried teenager, that she would become pregnant and give birth to a son. Did she freak out? Was she frightened? Was she worried about her family and what people would say? Could she try to abort the pregnancy and avoid a life long burden of motherhood? Who knows? We can only guess. Mary, though, says, "Thy will be done."

What?

She said, "Thy will be done."

"Really? What's up with that?"

Had she any idea what she was getting herself into?

The future trauma of seeing her only son killed by the Romans in a horrible execution would be something no parent could imagine let alone accept. Better, she may have thought, had Jesus not been born.

But then, Jesus could not have lived to bring the light of the divine to the world.

Mary, may have been happy, with how things turned out. Jesus, basically, told Pilate to go screw himself, and they killed His body but not His Spirit. Turns out they couldn't kill Him. The spirits of Jesus and Mary live on in the stories we tell about them. You got to admit they were really something and continue to be as they enrich our lives year after year.

The focus of the story is on the birth of the baby, Jesus. But none of this would have been possible without Mary. Mary is the conduit of the divine coming into the world once again. Without Mary, Jesus, would not have been born. Is Mary the best supporting actress in this drama or is she the star of the show? Depends on your focus and how you tell the story. While I like Jesus, there are times I like Mary better. Mother Mary, the Mother of our remembrance of the divine in the world. She knew what God was up to and she said, "Yes!" Wow!

In case you were wondering..............

Question of the day

If you see someone without a smile do you think it helps to give them one of yours?

Are you afraid of God?

Most people are afraid of God. The fear of God is unconsciously the basis of our human predicament, our deepest and most insidious anxiety and dysphoria. Unitarian Universalists sidestep the whole question and say, "You don't have to believe in God to be a UU. You can be an atheist if you like and still covenant with us." Francis David, the Unitarian pioneer in Transylvania in the 16th century, said, "We need not think alike to love alike." If we think that we can avoid fear by professing not to believe, we have missed the target. We can overcome fear if we embrace love.

We have been taught that God is the ultimate judge of our sinfulness. We speak, with some trepidation, about "the last judgment," the time when we "meet out maker." The dysfunctional religions tell us to fear God and then tell us that it is only they, the purveyors of this religious myth, that can save us. "Come to our church," they tell us. "Tithe and you will be rewarded ten fold," the merchants of the gospel of prosperity prophesy. The arrogance of pretending or even thinking that they know what God wants is preposterous and to the enlightened, laughable.

And yet, in our fear, many of us go along with this insanity for many reasons. The agnostic among us engage in Paschal's wager, hedging our bet that God exists even though we have grave doubts just in case God really does.

Fear drives us to what we call "faith" but this kind of "faith" is counterfeit. It is of the ego which we still don't want to surrender that is calling the shots. We still want control and to be able to be the author of our own "life," such as it is, full of drama, anguish, sorrow, anger, resentments, sometimes bitterness and despair. The first step of Alcoholics Anonymous is to admit that our lives are unmanageable.  Ultimately this is true for all of us whether we are alcoholic or engage in other compulsive mood altering behaviors. At some point, and we humans can tolerate a lot of pain and dysfunction, we must "pack it in."

God loves us, the mystics tell us, unconditionally. We don't have to do anything to merit God's love: God created us and shares God's life with us. We are well advised to give up the insane belief that God is a condemning judge. It is this belief which is at the basis of our most fundamental human predicament and it is what A Course In Miracles calls, "A tiny mad idea" that we can separate ourselves entirely from God.

Second week of advent - Saturday

At this time of year as we become more conscious of the divine within and among us, we are looking for unconditional love. Unconditional love is love without ego and judgement.

Do you know anyone who loves unconditionally? Have you ever loved unconditionally? When you encounter unconditional love there is an unmistakable fragrance and vibration experienced. It is what we call peace, joy, comfort, bliss, flow. We remember that this is our natural inheritance.

Jesus said that God is love. Unconditional love is what Jesus was talking about. He didn't bring it to us. It already was with us. We just didn't recognize and acknowledge it before. The God of the old testament was judgmental and full of wrath and condemnation. Jesus raised our consciousnesses. Jesus called His God, "Abba," which, I am told, is best translated as "Daddy."

Christmas, the birth of Jesus, is the time of year when He recall that Jesus came to remind us that there is Unconditional Love in the world. We just need to tune in.

In case you were wondering.....................

Question of the day

When you look in the mirror what do you see?