Father Tom Miles, from St. Paul's Episcopal in Manhattan, took the time to write this great reminder about the Christmas season. I'm sure everyone has a list for Santa, at least I know I do, but it is important to remember this season isn't about getting everything on our list, but about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks for this great reminder Fr Tom!
In addition to the pressure of dead week and finals week this year you have the added concern about the amount of money available for your next semester, next year or even next school. In fact we are all wondering how we can get ready for Christmas given the tight budget we are all constrained to follow. Perhaps I can help. There are lots of ways to approach the coming holiday without focusing on costs.
1.Focus on those relationships you value the most and ponder how you can show your love for your most intimate friends and relations by giving gifts that reflect your unique talents. Some times you can produce something that your closest intimates will value more than anything you can purchase.
2.Remember that your time is a valuable asset. What most people long for is someone else’s undivided attention. Spending quality time with the ones you care for can be the most rewarding time this season without spending money.
3.Christmas is a time that brings out nostalgia. One very rewarding pastime, especially with your older friends, is remembering past Christmases. What was the best thing you can remember about Christmases past?
4.Do not, under any circumstances, use your credit cards to purchase gifts, food, spirits or any other things if you do not have the money to pay for them. This only deepens the hole of debt, and you don’t want to face an even larger dept than you already have in January. That’s when folks get really depressed anyway.
5.I could summarize the above by simply suggesting that relationships can be far more rewarding than things, so focus on the relationships.
6.Last and I saved this for the last because it is my favorite, focus on the reason for the season. In most Christian Churches we emphasize this season as a time to wait and watch—for God. Yes, it is a time of preparation. Not preparation for a particular day, but we’re preparing our own souls for the coming of the one who promises to come and live with us. Gathering with those people who worship God actually strengthens our capacity to know and love God. In my book, that is the most important part of celebrating Christmas. All the rest is tinsel and lights.
Good luck on your finals. And have a very merry Christmas.
Fr. Tom Miles
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Week 3 of the Advent Prayer Service!
This past Thursday was the third week of our Advent prayer service. Once again Michael pushed us in our meditation to really re-think the way we look at gifts - both giving and receiving...it was so awesome! I suggest taking a moment to read the bible passages before you read over Michael's meditation - especially 1 Thessalonians.
1 Thessalonians 5:12-28, Psalm 126, John 3:23-30
This is our third week of this Advent meditation series. The first week I talked about what Advent is: a coming or arrival, when we celebrate Christ’s first coming into the world and we focus on our waiting for his Second coming into the world. That meditation we focused on a material possession we had and on its meaning and how it contributes to our waiting for Christ’s Second Advent. The second week we talked about preparing the way for Christ’s coming. Our meditation was on the receiving of gifts and how that can be a time of preparation for Christ’s coming by taking a moment to be thankful and realize how that gift continues to spread love in our lives.
The goal of these meditations is to take a moment to be still in our waiting for Christ’s coming and to see how gifts in our lives can be little reminders of God’s greatest gift to us, His son Jesus Christ.
In today’s New Testament reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians there are four verses I would like to focus on while we are meditating about giving a gift. These are verses 15-18. Verse 15 says: “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.” I think sometimes we give a gift because we feel obligated. This can be a form of evil. Especially if the first gift that was given to us felt like an obligation too. Gifts should not be obligations but reasons of joy and desires to share that joy. Verse 16 speaks to this. “Rejoice always” is all it says. We should rejoice in our gift giving always. Verse 17 says “pray constantly.” This reminds us to remember and invite God into our gift giving. By praying we are seeking Christ to be in the gift. And Verse 18 says “give thanks in all circumstances;; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Many times we expect thanks for our gifts that we give and forget that the gift itself is a representation of thankfulness. Thank you for being born. Thank you for being in my life. Thank you for being my friend. If we think about it more often our gifts are “thank yous” to God for placing that person in our lives.
So let us begin this meditation by closing our eyes and taking some deep breaths
*Think of a gift that you recently gave or are planning on giving.
*Who are you giving it to?
*Why are you giving it to them?
*What is the gift?
*Why did you choose that gift for them?
*How are you thanking God through your gift?
*How is your gift a representation of your wait for the coming of Christ?
Take a few more deep breaths and let us pray:
LORD almighty God we ask you to help us to give gifts of joy and thankfulness. Thank you for giving us your most precious gift, your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
1 Thessalonians 5:12-28, Psalm 126, John 3:23-30
This is our third week of this Advent meditation series. The first week I talked about what Advent is: a coming or arrival, when we celebrate Christ’s first coming into the world and we focus on our waiting for his Second coming into the world. That meditation we focused on a material possession we had and on its meaning and how it contributes to our waiting for Christ’s Second Advent. The second week we talked about preparing the way for Christ’s coming. Our meditation was on the receiving of gifts and how that can be a time of preparation for Christ’s coming by taking a moment to be thankful and realize how that gift continues to spread love in our lives.
The goal of these meditations is to take a moment to be still in our waiting for Christ’s coming and to see how gifts in our lives can be little reminders of God’s greatest gift to us, His son Jesus Christ.
In today’s New Testament reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians there are four verses I would like to focus on while we are meditating about giving a gift. These are verses 15-18. Verse 15 says: “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.” I think sometimes we give a gift because we feel obligated. This can be a form of evil. Especially if the first gift that was given to us felt like an obligation too. Gifts should not be obligations but reasons of joy and desires to share that joy. Verse 16 speaks to this. “Rejoice always” is all it says. We should rejoice in our gift giving always. Verse 17 says “pray constantly.” This reminds us to remember and invite God into our gift giving. By praying we are seeking Christ to be in the gift. And Verse 18 says “give thanks in all circumstances;; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Many times we expect thanks for our gifts that we give and forget that the gift itself is a representation of thankfulness. Thank you for being born. Thank you for being in my life. Thank you for being my friend. If we think about it more often our gifts are “thank yous” to God for placing that person in our lives.
So let us begin this meditation by closing our eyes and taking some deep breaths
*Think of a gift that you recently gave or are planning on giving.
*Who are you giving it to?
*Why are you giving it to them?
*What is the gift?
*Why did you choose that gift for them?
*How are you thanking God through your gift?
*How is your gift a representation of your wait for the coming of Christ?
Take a few more deep breaths and let us pray:
LORD almighty God we ask you to help us to give gifts of joy and thankfulness. Thank you for giving us your most precious gift, your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Advent Prayer #2
I am a bit behind with these but this is the seriously thoughtful prayer meditation from our Thursday evening prayer before Thanksgiving! Take some time to really think about gift giving and receiving...
The lesson for today was taken from the Gospel of Mark (1:1-8) and it is talking about the preparation for the coming of Christ. It talks about Isaiah prophesying the coming of John the Baptist who would prepare the way for the LORD. The story in Mark then talks about preparing for one greater than he, Jesus. We prepare in our lives for a lot of things, tests, interviews, dates, etc. Life is a continual process of preparing it seems. Especially as we look at this season of Advent as we prepare to celebrate the first Advent of Christ and we continue our preparation in our daily lives for Christ’s Second Advent. One way to prepare for Christ mindfully this season and as we are in the season of Thanksgiving is to mindfully prepare ourselves in the practice of receiving gifts. Today’s guided meditation will focus on how we receive gifts and our thankfulness for them.
Think of a gift you have received recently. Who was it from? What was your relationship with that person? Was it a special occasion? How did they give the gift to you? How do you think they acquired it? Was it homemade, bought? How is it special to you? What do you use if for? How did you feel when you received if? How did you thank them? Was it an expected gift?
Meditate on the word “gift” and its meaning to you.
LORD Jesus Christ we thank you for all the innumerable gifts of love we have received in this life. Help us to understand their meaning in our life as we prepare a way for You. In Your name we pray. AMEN.
The lesson for today was taken from the Gospel of Mark (1:1-8) and it is talking about the preparation for the coming of Christ. It talks about Isaiah prophesying the coming of John the Baptist who would prepare the way for the LORD. The story in Mark then talks about preparing for one greater than he, Jesus. We prepare in our lives for a lot of things, tests, interviews, dates, etc. Life is a continual process of preparing it seems. Especially as we look at this season of Advent as we prepare to celebrate the first Advent of Christ and we continue our preparation in our daily lives for Christ’s Second Advent. One way to prepare for Christ mindfully this season and as we are in the season of Thanksgiving is to mindfully prepare ourselves in the practice of receiving gifts. Today’s guided meditation will focus on how we receive gifts and our thankfulness for them.
Think of a gift you have received recently. Who was it from? What was your relationship with that person? Was it a special occasion? How did they give the gift to you? How do you think they acquired it? Was it homemade, bought? How is it special to you? What do you use if for? How did you feel when you received if? How did you thank them? Was it an expected gift?
Meditate on the word “gift” and its meaning to you.
LORD Jesus Christ we thank you for all the innumerable gifts of love we have received in this life. Help us to understand their meaning in our life as we prepare a way for You. In Your name we pray. AMEN.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
World AIDS Day Reflection.
So yesterday, if you didn't know, was World AIDS Day. The day is a wonderful way to prayerfully care for those in our global community that have been stricken with this pervasive disease. Yes, everyday we should pray and care for these people but World AIDS Day allows us to really spend time talking about an issue that is taboo and rather hidden typically. In fact, the World AIDS Day campaign is taking the initiative to de- stigmatize this disease so we may continue to openly educate and hopefully eradicate the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
KU's Canterbury House opened their chapel doors to their campus and community to gather for a prayer service yesterday. The intern at KU, Mary Rose Linker, had this to say during her sermon...
"The Body of Christ has AIDS” is what the Anglican church in Ireland calls its AIDS response effort. The Body of Christ has AIDS calls us to the reality that AIDS is not just “their” problem, whoever they are. AIDS is our problem, mine and yours, whether we are infected with the HIV virus or not. AIDS belongs to all of us. A full 5% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa in HIV-positive, and that is not just “theirs”; it's ours, because we are all part of the body of Christ. And I hope we all understand that the real victims of AIDS are women, who are infected at truly alarming rates, and children who are often born infected and whether or not they actually have the disease are often orphaned by HIV-positive mothers.
We are called into unity and communion with the world, not just in times of celebration but in times of deep sorrow and pain. In the United States, because we can speak more freely about sex, because we are aware and educated, we can prevent infection. We can prevent mother to child transmission. In the United States, 90-95% of HIV-infected mothers can have children without passing it onto them, and in fact, the opposite is true in Africa, where an infected mother has a 95% chance of passing the virus onto her unborn child, because she cannot get the drugs necessary to treat her own infection and because, often, she does not know that she even has it.
Chapter 64 of Isaiah is clearly a lament. Verse 6 is uniquely appropriate to the day: We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like an empty cloth. We all fade like a leaf... And then in verse 8, Isaiah gives us all hope: Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah is telling us what we all know: we are all the children of God, we are all part of the problem, we can all be part of the solution. We all have AIDS.
In our gospel reading, Jesus heals the lepers. Today, AIDS is often equated with leprosy in Biblical times. I imagine that our AIDS patients, especially when the disease has progressed, are treated very much like those lepers. To this day, AIDS patients are completely separated from other patients in many places, and having AIDS has the same stigma. Someone with AIDS must have deserved it in some way, someone with AIDS is unclean, and even in our educated culture there are people who say that AIDS is divine retribution, that God is punishing them. People in Biblical times treated the lepers in much the same way, but not Jesus. This passage remind us that disease is NEVER divine retribution, and that, as Jesus healed the lepers, so the body of Christ can also be healed. As a body, we have all become like one who is unclean, and we must all heal each other.
So, what do we do? We speak. Open your mouth. Youth are on track to be the fastest growing population of HIV-infected people world-wide and in the United States. Before their lives even get started, they have to deal with something that we hardly speak about. The more we talk about it, the more we educate each other and our friends, the more we can do to prevent it in the people we know and love the most.
And we pray. Prayer is underused and underestimated, and if we are Christians, it is possibly the most powerful force we have access to. And we don't just pray one day a year.
We are people of hope, and we are people of the resurrection. As we live through the global horror that is the AIDS pandemic, we know -- because God is faithful, even when we aren't -- that death is not the final word. Amen.
Awesome, right? right. So speak. and if you are so inclined...walk! This Sunday in fact! The KU Canterbury House is sponsoring a TakeTheWalk event (takethewalk.net) in Lawrence this Sunday. Check out the facebook page here and then join us at 1:30 at the South Park Gazebo!!
KU's Canterbury House opened their chapel doors to their campus and community to gather for a prayer service yesterday. The intern at KU, Mary Rose Linker, had this to say during her sermon...
"The Body of Christ has AIDS” is what the Anglican church in Ireland calls its AIDS response effort. The Body of Christ has AIDS calls us to the reality that AIDS is not just “their” problem, whoever they are. AIDS is our problem, mine and yours, whether we are infected with the HIV virus or not. AIDS belongs to all of us. A full 5% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa in HIV-positive, and that is not just “theirs”; it's ours, because we are all part of the body of Christ. And I hope we all understand that the real victims of AIDS are women, who are infected at truly alarming rates, and children who are often born infected and whether or not they actually have the disease are often orphaned by HIV-positive mothers.
We are called into unity and communion with the world, not just in times of celebration but in times of deep sorrow and pain. In the United States, because we can speak more freely about sex, because we are aware and educated, we can prevent infection. We can prevent mother to child transmission. In the United States, 90-95% of HIV-infected mothers can have children without passing it onto them, and in fact, the opposite is true in Africa, where an infected mother has a 95% chance of passing the virus onto her unborn child, because she cannot get the drugs necessary to treat her own infection and because, often, she does not know that she even has it.
Chapter 64 of Isaiah is clearly a lament. Verse 6 is uniquely appropriate to the day: We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like an empty cloth. We all fade like a leaf... And then in verse 8, Isaiah gives us all hope: Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah is telling us what we all know: we are all the children of God, we are all part of the problem, we can all be part of the solution. We all have AIDS.
In our gospel reading, Jesus heals the lepers. Today, AIDS is often equated with leprosy in Biblical times. I imagine that our AIDS patients, especially when the disease has progressed, are treated very much like those lepers. To this day, AIDS patients are completely separated from other patients in many places, and having AIDS has the same stigma. Someone with AIDS must have deserved it in some way, someone with AIDS is unclean, and even in our educated culture there are people who say that AIDS is divine retribution, that God is punishing them. People in Biblical times treated the lepers in much the same way, but not Jesus. This passage remind us that disease is NEVER divine retribution, and that, as Jesus healed the lepers, so the body of Christ can also be healed. As a body, we have all become like one who is unclean, and we must all heal each other.
So, what do we do? We speak. Open your mouth. Youth are on track to be the fastest growing population of HIV-infected people world-wide and in the United States. Before their lives even get started, they have to deal with something that we hardly speak about. The more we talk about it, the more we educate each other and our friends, the more we can do to prevent it in the people we know and love the most.
And we pray. Prayer is underused and underestimated, and if we are Christians, it is possibly the most powerful force we have access to. And we don't just pray one day a year.
We are people of hope, and we are people of the resurrection. As we live through the global horror that is the AIDS pandemic, we know -- because God is faithful, even when we aren't -- that death is not the final word. Amen.
Awesome, right? right. So speak. and if you are so inclined...walk! This Sunday in fact! The KU Canterbury House is sponsoring a TakeTheWalk event (takethewalk.net) in Lawrence this Sunday. Check out the facebook page here and then join us at 1:30 at the South Park Gazebo!!
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