New Year's Day 2008, New Seeing

The Gospel of John, 1:1-18

transl. Adam Bittleston

In the very beginning was the Word,

And the Word was with God,

And the Word was God.

He was with God in the very beginning.

All things came into being through Him,

And without Him came into being nothing

That has come into being.

In him was Life,

And the Life was the Light of mankind.

The Light sines in the Darkness,

And the Darkness did not grasp it.

John the Baptist, Leonardo da Vinci

There came to be a man, sent from God,

His name Ioannes.

He came for testimony,

That he should testify of the Light,

That all might have faith through him.

He was not the Light,

But came to testify of the Light.

For the Light that in truth endures,

That illumines every man,

Was coming into the World.

He was in the World,

And the World came into being through Him

Yet the World did not know Him.

He came to the separate,

Yet the separate men did not receive Him.

But those who received Him—

To them He gave full power

To become children of God,

Those who have faith in His name.

They have their being

Not from the bloodsteams,

Not from the will of the flesh,

Not from the will of a man,

But from God.

And the Word became flesh,

And made his dwelling among us,

And we saw His glory,

Glory of one born from the Father alone,

With abundance of grace and truth.

Ioannes testified of Him, proclaiming,

That is He of whom I said:

He Who comes after me

Takes His place above me

Because He was before me.

From the abundance of His Being

We have all received

Grace upon grace.

The Law was given through Moses;

Grace and truth came into being

Through Jesus Christ.

God no-one has beheld ever;

The Son Who is born of Him alone

And Who has His Being

At the Father’s breast,

Has come to lead our seeing. 

Holy Nights, New Year’s Day

January 1, 2008

John 1: 1-18

In the beginning, at the first creation in Genesis, God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light, separating itself out from the dark and formless void. Light is the forefront of all existence. After the light is created, come the waters of life, and the separation of the living waters of the heavens from what will become the watery earth below. The first creation was achieved through separation, by division and elaboration. And after a long human history, human beings become blind and God himself seems to disappear from the picture.

Roland Tiller

With the advent of Christ, the creating Word of God speaks again, and a second, new creation begins. What was sundered in the beginning becomes reconnected. The light and the living waters come together again, and a divine human being is created. He is a bright fountain of living light; in Him is a life that is the true first light itself. And the Light reveals—itself, as a God in a human form that we can see.

God enters the picture of the world again. He is a God whose truth is overflowing love. It is this human God, this divine human being, who would rouse us from the sleep of earth, from the illusions and deceptions of the sense-bound world. He would shine upon our day and open our eyes. Through Him, our blindness toward God will be healed. In this way, the abyss that had opened up between God and Man is bridged.

The creative Word of God speaks again, an invitation: “Come, follow Me across the abyss into a new way of seeing.”

And one day we all will say in the words of the mystic:

I saw a fullness, and a singeing

brightness with which I then

felt myself to be so filled

that words now fail to serve,….

I would not say I saw a bodily form,

but He was as He is in Heaven,

which is to say of such exquisite

beauty that I have no means

to speak it, save to say

He is the Beauty, the All Good.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Blessed Angela of Foligno (c. 1248-1309) “A Vision” in Love’s Immensity, Scott Cairns, p. 87.

New Year's Day 2009, Glowing Seeds

Holy Nights

John 1: 1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.

This was in the beginning with God.

Everything came into being through the Word, and without it was not anything made that was made.

In the Word was life, and the life was the light of humankind.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, so that through him all may find faith. He was not the light, but a witness to the light, for the true light that enlightens every human being was coming into the world. It was in the world, and the world came into being through it, but the world had not recognized it.

Into those who had recognized it the light had come, but those individuals did not take it in. But all who did take it in received authority to become children of God. Those who trusted in its name are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the human beings, but are born of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among (in) us.

And we beheld its revelation, the revelation of the only begotten son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John bore witness to Him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is the very first’.” For out of his fullness we have received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth have come about through Jesus Christ.

Until now human senses never beheld God. The only begotten Son, who was within the Father, has become the guide to this beholding.[1]

---

[1] Translation inspired by Craig Wiggins

New Year’s Day

January 1, 2009

John 1: 1 – 18

It is cold midwinter. The end of last year’s growth, the seeds, lie in the dark earth. Yet, if we only had the proper eyes, we could begin to see tiny flames flickering in and around them. For although it will take some time to manifest, new life is already beginning to quicken in the womb of Mother Earth. The seeds that will become the flowers and the grain of our food are already beginning to shine.

The impulse for this change comes from the divine world, from the world of the great beings who form the archetypes of all that lives. They generate, grow and ripen in the heart and mind of God. Eventually these archetypes make their way earthward. And just in this midwinter season, now the living beings of the plants are sending their living forms all the way down into the mineral world, to awaken last year’s seeds into this years’ plants.

In human souls, too, the same process is taking place. During the Holy Nights, the soul, with all the seeds of its past and future, awaits its impregnation. Into human hearts, new forces and impulses for life are streaming downward, as Christ, the archetype of the Divine Human Being, once more enters the realm of earth. With Him He brings His father’s Light, His Father’s life, His Father’s love.

Through God’s grace during these Holy Days and Nights, we have the opportunity to begin life anew. The soul is encouraged to become a womb to receive the Father’s light. It is encouraged to generate the flames of the Father’s eternal life. It is encouraged to give birth to the Father’s love. Three flames—the flame of the light of truth in our thinking, the flame of life’s beauty in our feeling, the flame of love’s offering in our will, are beginning to shine forth in us. May they grow and mature. May they become the truth of spirit-sun, the beauty of spirit-flowers, the goodness of spirit-grain. May they pour forth from our hearts, out into all the world.

For, as St. Francis said,

There are beautiful wild forces within us.

Let them turn the mills inside,

and fill

sacks

that feed even

heaven.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] St. Francis of Assisi, “Wild Forces”, in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 47.

New Year's Day 2010, Training Wheels

Holy Nights

John 1: 1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.

This was in the beginning with God.

Everything came into being through the Word, and without it was not anything made that was made.

In the Word was life, and the life was the light of humankind.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, so that through him all may find faith. He was not the light, but a witness to the light, for the true light that enlightens every human being was coming into the world. It was in the world, and the world came into being through it, but the world had not recognized it.

Into those who had recognized it the light had come, but those individuals did not take it in. But all who did take it in received authority to become children of God. Those who trusted in its name are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the human beings, but are born of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among (in) us.

And we beheld its revelation, the revelation of the only begotten son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John bore witness to Him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is the very first’.” For out of his fullness we have received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth have come about through Jesus Christ.

Until now human senses never beheld God. The only begotten Son, who was within the Father, has become the guide to this beholding.[1]

---

[1] Translation inspired by Craig Wiggins

New Year’s Day

January 1, 2010

John 1: 1 – 18

Maulsby Kimball

In the beginning God created a living radiance. This radiance took form in sun moon and stars. In the beginning God created the human being, giving us eyes with which to see the light.

In the beginning God shepherded us with the Law, with specific codes of conduct, designed to mold and shape our souls and spirits rightly toward God and toward our fellow human beings.

And then He began again. He sent His beloved Son, whose very essence and being is Love. Seeing God’s Son, the way He talked, the way He healed, the way His actions were connected back to His Father, human beings can also experience the light, the life, the love of the Father Himself. Through the Son, we are given eyes of the soul, opened by love, with which to see God.

Seeing the Son is grace; taking His essence into our hearts lets us experience the truth of our own being: that love in us is a living, radiant creative force. In the words of Hafiz,

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child’s training wheels

To be laid aside

When you can finally live

with veracity and love.

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

That this is the time

For you to compute the impossibility

that there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is Sacred.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Hafiz, “Now is the Time”, in The Gift, versions of Hafiz, by Daniel Ladinsky

New Year's Day 2011, Begin Again

New Year's Day

1 Colossians 15-20

The Son is the visible image of the invisible God, the first-born over all created beings. For in him has come into existence everything that is in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible world, the Thrones and the World Guides, the Archai and the Creator Spirits. All things were created through him and for him. He was there before all else, and everything coheres in him. And he is the head of the body, and his body is the great community of congregations. He is also the very beginning,  and the firstborn among those who rise from the dead, so that he may be the One who goes before in all thing and everything. For in him all fullness of God was pleased to dwell, to transform and to reconcile everything to himself, laying the foundations of peace through the blood of his cross.  Through him all beings on the earth as well as in the heavenly spheres are to attain their goal.

Holy Nights

January 1, 2011

Colossians 15-20

We human beings exist within two worlds. There is the visible one—we see it, hear it, perceive it with all of our senses. They act as a kind of a mirror held up to the world. These sense perceptions are clear but limited.

They are not tuned in to the other world, the invisible one, the world behind the mirror. This is why it is so hard to believe in this second world—out of sight, out of mind.

Yet this world not seen is a world of fullness. It is the world of the beginnings of things. It is the world of great angelic beings, who work endlessly to bring creation to its goal. It is the world of Christ, the Son of the Father of Lights. Christ was a first—the first born of His father, and the first born from the realm of death. He is himself the beginning of a new creation, the beginning and the goal.

Brian Jeckel

By filling the world with his invisible love, Christ makes it possible for us to be in community. Though ‘blind’, we can feel our way along strands of love with which He binds the world together. Though deaf, we can sense the vibrations that give us direction. He makes it possible for us to be people of good will, a will devoted to light, to life, to love. He makes it possible for us, not just to be, to exist, but also to become, to evolve and transform. He gives us ever new beginnings, so that one day, we will grow eyes to see the invisible, hear the inaudible.  A poet said,

Because we are imperfect and love so

Deeply we will never have enough days,

We need the gift of starting over, beginning

Again: just this constant good, this

Saving hope.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Nancy Shaffer, Instructions in Joy

New Year's Day 2012, Flame of Compassion

The Gospel of John, 1:1-18

transl. Adam Bittleston

In the very beginning was the Word,

And the Word was with God,

And the Word was God.

He was with God in the very beginning.

All things came into being through Him,

And without Him came into being nothing

That has come into being.

In him was Life,

Roland Tiller

And the Life was the Light of mankind.

The Light sines in the Darkness,

And the Darkness did not grasp it.

There came to be a man, sent from God,

His name Ioannes.

He came for testimony,

That he should testify of the Light,

That all might have faith through him.

He was not the Light,

But came to testify of the Light.

For the Light that in truth endures,

That illumines every man,

Was coming into the World.

He was in the World,

And the World came into being through Him

Yet the World did not know Him.

He came to the separate,

Yet the separate men did not receive Him.

But those who received Him—

To them He gave full power

To become children of God,

Those who have faith in His name.

They have their being

Not from the bloodsteams,

Not from the will of the flesh,

Not from the will of a man,

But from God.

And the Word became flesh,

And made his dwelling among us,

And we saw His glory,

Glory of one born from the Father alone,

With abundance of grace and truth.

Ioannes testified of Him, proclaiming,

That is He of whom I said:

He Who comes after me

Takes His place above me

Because He was before me.

From the abundance of His Being

We have all received

Grace upon grace.

The Law was given through Moses;

Grace and truth came into being

Through Jesus Christ.

God no-one has beheld ever;

The son Who is born of Him alone

And Who has His Being

At the Father’s breast,

Has come to lead our seeing.

Holy Nights

January 1, 2012

John 1: 1-18

Words contain a great mystery. They are handed down to us by our parents. Words are a legacy of the memory of how the world is structured, structured with beings, with actions, with qualities. Words are also the garments of thoughts. Thoughts not only reflect the past; they can also create the future.

This creating power of the Word manifested in the ancient past as the creation of the world. The Word’s first creation: Let there be light. The Word became light.

The creative Word is still resounding as a sounding power, creating the future. Now it says: ‘Let there be love’. But unlike the first creation, this resounding of the Word requires our human cooperation. Human beings must hear it; human beings must take its creative power into themselves.

Christ Jesus is the prototype of the human being who takes into Himself the divine force of creating love and shines it forth as a revelation. Through Christ, through Christ living in us, working in us, God’s grace shines forth into the world. Through Christ living and working in us, the truth of human creation reveals itself: ‘I have said you are ‘gods’[1]. The poet expresses it thus:

You were there in the beginning

you heard the story, you heard the merciless

and tender words telling you where you had to go.

….

you couldn't live

so close to the live flame of that compassion

you had to go out in the world and make it your own

so you could come back with

that flame in your voice, saying listen...

this warmth, this unbearable light, this fearful love...

It is all here, it is all here.[2]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] John 10:34-37 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’?  If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?

Jesus’ reference is to Psalm 82: ‘God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the “gods”…. “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’

[2] David Whyte “In the Beginning” in Fire in the Earth

New Year's Eve 2009, Offering Light

New Year's Eve

Genesis 1: 1-8

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning. A second day. 

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Blake

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Blake

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2009

Genesis 1:1-8

  

God’s very first act of creation was to generate light. At first diffuse, He separated the darkness out and gave the light form in sun, moon and stars. And finally He created the Light-Form of the Human Being. We are created as an image of God. Like God, the human being is a creator.

Iris Sullivan

Tonight, at the midnight hour, at this generation of a new year, our noblest thoughts and highest hopes are given a particular power. Normally what we think and strive toward is received by the angels and the archangels, the angels closest to us. They work as best they can with what we offer them, to help bring the future into being. But on New Year’s, the portals to the heavenly staircase are, for a moment, thrown open. Our noblest thoughts rise all the way up to the highest hierarchies. They in turn, give our offerings a particularly strong power to become reality. At New Year’s, the light of the future begins to take form.

Strange to think that perhaps God needs what we have to offer, in order to create the future; that He invites our creativity. In the words of Nelly Sachs,

  

…Perhaps God needs the longing, wherever else shall it dwell,

….And perhaps is invisible soil from which roots of stars grow and swell -

….Perhaps in the sky of longing worlds have been born of our love -

….Around us already perhaps future moons, suns, and stars blaze in a fiery wreath.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Nelly Sachs, (Translated by Ruth and Matthew Mead, in A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, ed. by Aliki and Willis Barnstone)

Holy Nights 2012, Born in Us

Holy Nights

1 John 4: 7-13

Sulamith Wulfing

Dear brothers, let us bear love toward one another, for true love comes from God; everyone who is truly loving is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not truly love has not known God, for God is love.

And this is what revealed God’s love among us, that God has sent into the world his only begotten Son in order that we might live through Him.

God’s love consists in this: not in the way that we have loved him, but that he has loved us, and has given his Son to save us from the banishment of sin.

My dearly beloved, if God has so loved us, so also should we bear love toward one another.

Until now no one has seen God with his eyes. When we bring love to one another, God dwells in us and his love is fulfilled in us.

By this we know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Holy Nights

Sulamith Wulfing

December 30, 2012

1 John 4: 7-13

Studies have shown that people often fall in love in response to the overtures of those who are in love with them. They fall in love because they are loved.

Today’s reading say that God’s love is different. God doesn’t love us because we love Him. God’s love generates itself. He loves us no matter whether we reciprocate or not. Even when humankind has turned away from Him, or has failed to recognize Him, He poured out His Being of Love in the form of His Son, the Word Incarnate.

Ancient scripture says that God’s intention for humankind was that we were to be His image and likeness. To become like Him means that we so evolve our capacity to love, that it can generate itself; that it can pour itself forth toward our fellow human beings; that our love is ever fresh, even if they don’t return it; even if they aren’t aware of it.

To be able to fulfill this high goal of love means that Christ has been born in us. It means that He dwells in our heart. In fact, that was why He came, hoping that we would give Him a dwelling in our heart. For as Angelus Silesius says

Though Jesus Christ in Bethlehem

A thousand times his Mother bore,

Is he not born again in thee

Then art thou lost for evermore.[1]

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[1] Angelus Silesius, “GOD MUST BE BORN IN THEE” in Selections from the Cherubinic Wanderer.