Maggi Dawn today takes us to the environment where Jesus was born … our instinct is to take anything holy and ‘protect’ them in a holy space, but:
We expect Jesus to be where it’s clean, but he is born into the mess of human life. We think of Jesus as safe and calm and serene, but he grows up to be the kind of leader who has his sleeves rolled up, ready to face reality and connect the spiritual world to the material one. We try to restrain him and keep him clean, but he breaks out of those expectations.
So I love this image from Seed Resources in which a Christmas Tree is made from a cleaning brush:
Ron Glusenkamp encourages us to think about the phrase “Don’t take it personally” in the hope that we will think about how the birth of Christ affects us as a person, and as a child of God. Give of our best, with confidence and generosity, and the rest will follow! Nice suggestion to give out gift certificates for an hour of your time…