On the Third Day of Christmas

Some gifts from the archives of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship:

1. December Prayers by Carl Scovel: Christ my morning, Christ my evening, Christ my noon, and Christ my rest...Transcendent truth, transform me...O God, teach me my insufficiency, then my power...Holy God, Holy River, Holy Reservoir to which my waters flow, Holy Spring from which they come, Holy Moving, Holy Mystery, Holy More than my mere words, Holy Void into which I pour my pitcher, Holy Flowing in which I love and move and am--and all this does not say yet. (after reading Psalm 46:3-4).

2. Christmas is about the coming of the Messiah. It is about the breaking through into time--our time, not just a time two thousand years ago--Christmas is about the breaking through into time of God's grace...The Christmas faith is not a faith in something which happened two thousand years ago, and it was done and over with then. We do not wend our way to the manger at Christmas to worship past history but to worship him who was called Emmanuel--God with us--here...now.--Judith Hoehler.

3. And as we sing our lessons and carols, this from James Luther Adams: The Christian, in singing, does more than express emotion. Like the singers of other traditions, there are songs of praise, confession, recollection, dedication, and fellowship. Hymns become forms of communion between people and God, providing a bridge that leads to the victory of the creative and recreative powers of the divine, thereby enabling us to find a new flute and a new melody such as the song the stars sang together on the morning of creation. Why do we sing? Carlyle has told us: "All Deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us is Song; as if all the rest were but wrappings and hulls. The primal element of us and of all things, the heart of creation, is music."

We are surrounded by a mighty cloud of witnesses, those who have left us the legacy of their lives and those who are with us today, supporting us and reminding us to look up where the Star of Bethlehem shines for all to see. For all, no matter what.