Being Enfolded in the Arms of God

Thursday, December 17, 2015 

            How does it feel to hold a new-born child in your arms?  Whether or not that baby is your own or someone else’s, one gets a sense of newness and hope, the feeling that the world will continue.  Think of the hopes and dreams that you have for this new life, of how you want this baby to fulfill its destiny, to know her / himself as a child of God, and the world as a place to which s/he could make a contribution.

            Now imagine holding the baby Jesus – on Christmas morning.  Yes, the hopes of the whole world wrapped in those swaddling clothes.  It is so much better that he began in a manger than in a cradle made of gold.  I know for myself that I don’t want the future of the world to be in wealth or in the rulership of the elite or of powerful military leaders. 

            Give me a savior who began life as a baby just like I began, but one whose heart is full of Love and Joy and Peace.  The Love, and Joy, and Peace that he passes onto this broken world in order to redeem, not just the world, but us as individuals, too.

            As I have expressed in my poetry, I believe our world was once like that and that we, too, began in innocence.  Some place along the way, we chose to rest in the arms of something or someone other than God.  However, theology is not the point here during these days prior to Christmas.  We can make a choice to be born as like the Christ Child.  Becoming a New Creation is available to each of us every day, every moment.

            On this upcoming Christmas morning, imagine that you are cradling Jesus in your arms and, all the while you, yes, you and me, are being enfolded in the arms of God.