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Disruptive Christmas
By Philip Carr-Jones, December 24, 2021

​1.
While we come here for comfort in the storm,
for a piece of peace that soothes and assures,
For a calmness that puts into perspective
The panic, the fear, the losses and the breach
For an explanation to whatever ails us
And for a hope to leave with what warms
And warms and warms and warms
A hope that will get us through, get us past
Get us to a place that is anything but right now.
So we want what we want and we want it badly.
2.
We come here for comfort in the storm
And not like just any old storm that was
That comes from age, or comes from illness
Or comes from accident or comes from malice
A storm caused from within or from without
It is not any old storm this year and while
We could say that every year, or any year
Anyone hearing this understands this, this year
This time is different in a difference we don’t want
So what we don’t want, we don’t want badly.
3.
We come here for comfort in the storm
And we’re not wrong for wanting exactly that
And no guilt is to be dispersed like ashes
Or sprinkled about like unholy water
In order to get some compliance or shame
Castigating the complacent and compromising
No, we are not wrong for the wanting to hope
For just a morsel of kindly, gentle embracing
A little bit, just a little mote, a glimpse of it:
The solemn beauty of the Feast of the Nativity.
4.
We come here for comfort in the storm
What we come here for is true but not only
It is not the only truth that night and forever
A truth that would give us what we want
But then would give us more than we asked
And the more than we asked is more than we want
This other truth than is more than comfortable
This other truth that will not leave us alone
Not even for one night, not even for one hour
(As if a worship here would only be one hour!)
5.
We come here for comfort in the storm
A comfort of growing disruption because it must as
All things that draw toward holiness change us
By means of disturbing any surety of self
As we grew a concrete confidence of who we are
A masquerading misuse of freedom
I get to want what I want and to hell with you
That costs a life, a culture and now very possibly, a planet
And the craving of comfort can be a balm
Of anesthesia denying the call that true comfort makes
6.
We come here for comfort in the storm
with a tent-pitching God making camp within
more intimately than a Mary with child
For what good is it if Mary gave birth
to the Son of God two millenia ago
And we do not give birth to the Son of God
in our time and in our culture? We say
With the ancient master Meister Eckart
We are all meant to be Mothers of God:
All us and all others, however we may be.
7.
We come here for comfort in the storm
As drawn far from known neighborhoods
Known neighbors, known haunts and habits
The repetitions of tide tables
That this God of comfort will ignore
To move us out, so we bring to birth
whatever it is God needs in our case
Our times, our loves, our occupations
And not for us only, no not for us for
We are not we without all the others
8.
We come here for comfort in the storm
Yet we become citizens of the storm
That so quietly and so quietly revolutions
Lives untold gone before and come after
Revealing into solid thickening grace causing
Driving, praying, embodying
And in the end, nativitizing the universe
Through all eras and issues and before this creche
Empires fall and churches fall and all powers fall
All those powers, pregnant with war, need peace.
9.
We come here for comfort in the storm
some like Mary and Joseph seeking shelter
And some like shepherds come in from the cold
And some like angels sent on loud errands
Leaving villages, and flocks, and celestial havens
To tell the story and live the story and wonder the story
And come from out there to sit in here
and ponder in our hearts keeping sacred there
In the middle of us, amidst the storm
Where life can never be the same but be brilliant
10.
We come here for comfort in the storm
Ending forever the abyss of a-loneness:
We are not and never were just one
Which would on the face of it be absolute joy
Were it not unevenly appearing in uneven persons
Giving the treasury of doubt in a deeper faith
That must arrive finally in perfect Glory & Peace.
Glory to God and Peace to those who enjoy God's favor
While changing and growing and paining to be
The likeness of the one given birth we celebrate
11.
We come here for comfort in the storm
Christmas is God’s yes, a celebration without asterisk
I like my Christmas Pudding as much as anyone!
We come here too in Celebration of Divine Disruption
More glorious than mere coziness
Pondering all these things in our hearts
That break our hearts open with this love too strong
Too powerful, too overwhelming
And so soft and that it must beg the host
To enter in, how silently, how silently the gift
12.
We come here for comfort in the storm
Singing:
Gloria
Gloria in
Gloria in excelsis
Gloria in excelsis Deo
Gloria in excelsis Deo
Gloria in excelsis Deo
Gloria in excelsis Deo
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

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Church of the Holy Spirit - 3 Haytown Road - Lebanon, New Jersey  08833
908 236-6301  www.churchholyspirit.org

To become Christ as we serve others, proclaim God’s love, and grow in the Spirit.
ABOUT US
Who We Are
Our Rector
Our Deacon
Our Staff
Our Vestry
Our Photos
Our History
Legacy Giving
Building Use
​
WORSHIP
Visiting CHS​
Sunday Services
Sermons
​Weekdays and Holy Days Services
Music
Baptisms
Weddings
​Memorial Services
FORMATION
​Sunday School
Nursery
Adult Education
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
​"Windows of the Spirit"
SERVING OTHERS
Family
Youth
We Care
Pastoral Care
Country Arch
Culinary Angels
Food Pantry
Prison Ministry
Shawl Ministry
​Good Friday Day of Service