On the third day of Christmas...Amazing Peace

Amazing Peace,
a Christmas poem
by Dr. Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.

We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

Day 18

Well, I believed that there was a God because I was told it by my grandmother and later by other adults. But when I found that I knew not only that there was God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous. I dared to do anything that was a good thing. I dared to do things as distant from what seemed to be in my future. I became a translator in Serbo-Croat in Yugoslavia, and I conducted the Boston Pops. I taught at the Habima Theatre in Tel Aviv in Israel, and I worked as a journalist in Egypt with the only English news magazine in the Middle East. All of that, and I come from a little village in Arkansas, smaller than Picayune, (laughs) and I was a young black woman, trying to do all the good things. When I was asked to do something good, I often say yes, I'll try, yes, I'll do my best. And part of that is believing, if God loves me, if God made everything from leaves to seals and oak trees, then what is it I can't do?

~ Maya Angelou  (our oldest daughter's namesake)

(taken from interview conducted via teleconference, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune and The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. http://www.nola.com/living/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2013/02/maya_angelou_discusses_her_fai.html )

A suggestion for your prayer and meditation:

God, help me to internalize, help me comprehend
that I am your child.

May I be encouraged by this reality.
May I courageously do good in this world
because I believe
because I know
that You love me.

Amen.
Pastor Patty Fox 40 days with 40 Christian mystics

It can be really hard sometimes to accept that God loves us- because of the things we've done, the things we've experienced, the things we've been told or the type of religious baggage we've inherited or grown up with. What have we not done because we thought we weren't "worthy"? What could we achieve if, like Maya Angelou, we come to understand how much God loves us?