As a minister, people call upon me to make sense of the world, especially after 20 children and six teachers are slain, a mentally ill boy lies dead clutching an assault rifle, a school is forever stained with blood, dozens of emergency workers are permanently damaged, and an entire community is stricken with collective PTSD.

Last December my middle child was in first grade. Last December I had no words to offer as either a mother or a minister. Last December I had no “religious ability” to make sense of such horror. Last December I only had tears and rage. Righteous, holy rage.

Last December I tried to pray, but what for? I tried to send every ounce of love and presence to Newtown, CT. I held each child, family, teacher, police officer, administrator, neighbor, as close as I could to my heart, but what for? I knew the God of the universe was on her knees with them, weeping, spinning, disoriented. I did not need to pray God would draw near to the Sandy Hook community; she was already there.

Last December I signed every petition I could lobbying our government for gun control. I plastered a bumper sticker on my car that read: Ban Assault Weapons Now. I searched the editorials for a shift in our nation’s obsession with guns, but learned only that guns sales were up and the NRA was brasher than before.  

Last December I felt certain God was powerless as were the families of the slaughtered.

This December I still have no words. This December I am still filled with righteous rage, although I believe it is more tempered. This December I am able to pray, although I still wonder about the efficacy of my prayers.

Yet, this December, I am hopeful that God is more active and powerful in the universe than I believed a year ago. This December I am fervently praying that the light of the world will break into our lives in a palpable way. I am praying that the child born to us, to two unwed teenage parents, will once again turn the world upside down with his light. I am praying that guns will cease to be owned, children will skip off to school, teachers will laugh, police officers will rescue cats out of trees, and communities will be blessed to bury their elderly, not their sweet mittened children.

If you feel powerless as the one year of Sandy Hook is upon us, please join Grace Community Boston in collecting mittens and gloves for families in need. We will be hanging 20 children’s gloves/mittens and 7 adult gloves in our sacred gathering space as a way to remember those who were lost. At the end of Advent we will donate them to a local shelter. Gloves and mittens can be dropped off at 28 Gould Street, Walpole or during a Sunday evening gathering at 10 Cottage Street, Norwood.  For more information visit GraceCommunityBoston.org

I love Christmas. I HATE the holidays. Why? Christmas is a sacred, mysterious, and even a wonderfully cozy time. The “Holidays” is a terrifying consumer driven shop until you drop frenzy. My life is frantic enough. I hate shopping. I don’t have a large cash flow. Of course I hate the Holidays.

I use to try to boycott the holidays. I would shut out all of the consumer bling. It didn’t work. I still wanted to buy gifts for a dear friend, my new godson. I even wanted to buy the holiday pump soap that smelled of ginger bread. It’s difficult to shut out the holiday bling machine.

I have sought out alternative consumerism to resist the bling machine. What is that? SERRV.org, local markets, used goods (try your local Salvation Army or Good Will store), Heifer Project, Unicef, and well any environmentally conscious, small, local entrepreneur.

@Grace we are offering an alternative to Holiday consumerism Nov 23rd. Celebrate Christmas with us. Ignore the holidays. Use the money you have for good to support fair trade across the global and local trade right in your backyard. 

The above quote isn’t strictly a Christmas text, but it should be. We need to be careful not to tame it, imagining it painted on a tea cozy in a nice cursive hand, but see it for what it is:  a call to radical welcome, and risky service. After all, the author of Hebrews goes on to say:  “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” Tough words, when what it means is to pray for violent offenders.

But I didn’t mean to go there. It is Advent, after all, that sweet and spicy time of the year. It’s a time when a lot of us are doing extra entertaining, and being entertained. But what would it mean to make strangers, in addition to loved ones, the beneficiaries of our hospitality? What would it mean to entertain an angel?

The Christmas texts are rife with angels:  from the angel of the Lord’s visit to Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, on through the heavenly host singing the Messiah over the shepherd’s fields.  In almost every instance, the first thing they say to those they visit is “Be not afraid!” What kind of message is this?

We have so stripped angels of any kind of awe-ful presence, so domesticated them with our tchotchkes that we can’t imagine being afraid of one. But who and what are angels actually? What are they for?

Angelos means messenger. Angels are the FedEx workers of God:  there to deliver urgent letters and instructions, some welcome, some unwelcome. They also arrive, on occasion, to help or heal, hence the mythos of the guardian angel. They always come unannounced, and do nobody’s bidding but God’s. But Angels are not always safe—don’t forget that Satan was once and is forever an angel. They are strange, and they are strangers.

In New England, strangers ignore each other in public—it’s the polite thing to do. But I’ve seen this:  when that rarity, a natural extrovert (usually a Buffalonian) shows up and starts acting all friendly, we’re grateful for a chance to drop the façade, to get to know one another, to bridge the gulf of loneliness and difference and feel that there may be something to this “body of Christ,” “one human family” thing after all.

One thing the angels and the newborn Jesus have in common is this: anyone might be a divine messenger, or Godself, disguised in ordinary flesh, walking around on this planet. That is what “incarnation” means.

During this holy time of Advent, why not try to redefine the normal magazine definition of “holiday hospitality.” Forget about the cute place markers and perfect bottle of wine to accompany the perfect spread of Hors D’oeuvres. Instead try making a connection with a stranger (yes, a stranger!). Say hello on the train. Invite the neighbor you say nothing more than “hi” to for dinner? Talk to the mom who always waits quietly to pick up her child from school. Sit next to someone you don’t know at the senior center. Speaking with stranger is about really believing that YOU are worthy of visitation from an angel—that Someone has a message for you.