The Core

C. S. Lewis, the Christian author and apologist, famous for “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” wrote in a letter about an incident where his brother heard a woman on a bus say, as the bus passed a church with a crib outside it … ‘They bring religion into everything. Look, they’re dragging it even into Christmas now’.           It’s a funny world where we can get the truth so jumbled, where the reality of Christmas celebration beginning in church can come to be seen as something Christians are trying to infiltrate. We can become so separated from truth too easily it appears. We like being right because it gives us a sense of security, and so we lean hard into the things that make us assured that we have it right. That may be part of the reason why we’re told in the Bible that the beginning of wisdom is Humility. The term that’s used is “the fear of the Lord,” but the meaning of that “fear” is humility. It’s just knowing who is greater and stronger and learning from them.           We need to reteach ourselves that humility is the core demonstration of God’s love. We need to remind our souls of his willingness to grow from a fetus into manhood, so that he could win our love through an experience of equality. This is the story of Jesus, the story of Christmas, which challenges us to grow into fierce integrity. It speaks into our rush for security, for being on the right side, for claiming strength and demanding rights. It tests our willingness to take more time, to be patient, to be open to the different, the new, and even to the odd person. We sometimes don’t realize that as we act in any of these ways that our soul is changed. We get rewired in our brains, our hormones shift, and our blood pressure responds and eases. As we live these moments, as our spirits are renewed, we grow into something stronger than assurance. We grow into the wholeness that is experienced as engagement, presence, with life. Instead of finding a stopping place, like being right, we exchange our fears for participation in living and become life-giving as well as life-receiving. We accept the invitation of Christmas to become partners with God in life and love. Blessings, Geoff