January 06, 10:30pm (Kevin Westling)
The Christmas story calls us to get up, to leave that place, to come again into a life that is pregnant with possibilities… whether at ninety-five years old or one-year old. True, they are not the same possibilities at ninety-five as at one, but we are always capable of giving birth to yet one more new love, one more new hope, one more new vision, one more new perspective, one more new possibility.
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December 24, 2009 (10:30 p.m.)
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
Good evening.
Not everyone can go home from Church tonight
having heard about the miraculous birth…of Buddha;
or the miraculous birth of Jesus…in the Koran.
Not everyone can go home from Church tonight
having heard a jazz rendition of
“Can you hear what I hear?”
If you didn’t bargain for such a unique meditation,
I apologize for the surprise.
On the other hand…
after 2000 years, don’t you think the Prince of Peace
would appreciate something a little different?
For those of you who have never been to Trinity@7,
it is, like tonight, a series of readings
from various world religions
and poetry that may or may not be at all religious,
syncopated by solo jazz piano
or a jazz ensemble.
(By the way, this coming Sunday evening,
December 27th is one of the rare Sunday evening
in which we do not offer Trinity@7).
For those of you who are Trinity@7 regulars
and have never seen me in a dress before…
welcome to this more traditional incarnation
of Trinity Church.
I hope it doesn’t make you too nervous.
Okay then, we’re all here sharing this moment,
on this special evening,
and hopefully we will take away whatever
sundry and different things
we came to receive.
And now, a word about this night
from whatever place you arrived.
Like a whisper in the dark…
a nearly ripe fetus gurgling in the body –
warm darkness of the watery womb…
Like a dream echoing through
the darkness of your sleep
from within the sealed cave of your scull…
Like a feeling that begins as a flutter
inside the darkest chamber of your heart,
and reaches out to raise the hair
on the back of your neck…
Like those, and a thousand other metaphors,
there is a birth waiting to happen –
a new possibility –
only you…can labor into life.
Even now, even in you,
there is a birth waiting to happen.
I have been present for,
and experienced the ecstasy of birth,
four times.
Now you and I know
I experienced it quite differently than my wife did;
nonetheless, it is an intense if different experience,
for the father or partner.
Each time was different
and each time,
with each birth,
it was as if the first.
What is also striking to me,
is how much those experiences at birth
are similar to the many times I have had the privilege to attend death.
In birth,
the slick, blue-green cone of a head
expands into the world from
the warren of life
and stops there, momentarily…
waiting to be heaved forward
as the shoulders are dislodged.
Then, the rest slips out
like the last of the toothpaste expelled from the tube.
At death
Life seems to recede from the head down;
warmth and color and hope
glide unnoticed down the arms and legs
and out the toes –
like the tide slips out to sea
leaving the sand
to fend for itself.
Think about it:
In birth a death has occurred –
the loss of a dark warm place.
It is the loss of utter dependence,
complete symbiosis:
the harmony of breath and blood and movement
so special,
so unique,
it never comes again.
Birth is cut loose only by loss;
and we who have waited so long
with great and joyful anticipation
for the arrival of a new child,
hardly give it a thought.
A labor driven by love
draws us out from the warmest,
safest
and most intimate place we will ever know –
into a new world of possibility.
In death
a life has occurred –
a birth into a spectacular freedom
in which we soar with God
without wings
and with only nakedness between us.
In death, we slither out of the body
just as we slithered into it from the womb,
and life returns to life.
Between our birth into this life,
and our death into the next one,
you and I…are the warrens of life itself.
Between our birth into this life,
and our death into the next one,
each of us is a crowded warren of births
waiting to happen.
Each of us, you and I,
is a womb of continuous possibilities.
Is there anyone here who has decided
they have run out of possibilities?
Even the most desperate and failed alcoholic
has at least one more possibility –
because someone equally desperate before them
was born into sobriety.
Even the most illness-wracked body
or anguished mind,
has yet one more possibility.
There is always at least one more opportunity
to assist the grace of God
with one more person –
even though he or she may not know it at the time.
Now, I know that every one of us here,
every one of us,
has at one time or another
crashed into a wall that has no give;
and we have been sorely tempted
to slide down on our butt and rest there,
or weep there,
or give up and die there.
The Christmas story calls us to get up,
to leave that place,
to come again
into a life that is pregnant with possibilities…
whether at ninety-five years old or one-year old.
True, they are not the same possibilities
at ninety-five as at one,
but we are always capable of giving birth
to yet one more new love,
one more new hope,
one more new vision,
one more new perspective,
one more new possibility.
Only when we finally slip out of this life
and are born into the next one,
does our capacity for new possibility in this life end…
at least as far as we know.
You and I have are here tonight
because even now,
a new possibility is growing within us…
growing toward birth…
growing toward Life.
Can you feel it?
Here in the candlelight,
washed in the music of organ, strings, brass, piano and voice,
gathered around the table of openness
and of the common cup,
there is a Word or a Song
with your name on it.
It whispers of your new possibility.
It may be something very small and mundane,
like a conversation you need to have with someone.
But do not underestimate
the possibilities of what could come of it.
It may be something huge,
like a change in vocation or lifestyle or profession,
but don’t turn your head in dread
at the dimensions of the new life that is dawning – millions have gone before you…and thrived.
Whatever it is,
this very night,
there in the warm and holy darkness of your own soul,
a new possibility is growing toward birth.
Feel it.
Name it.
Place your hand on the womb of your heart
and comfort it.
There in the holy darkness within your life,
where possibilities are conceived,
a new possibility is growing toward birth.
I want to invite us to come forward now,
and light a candle
to that new possibility emerging in you.
Give it a name.
Call to it gently.
Light a candle and pray for its safe journey.
Merry Christmas.
