From The Director, Kathy Irvin:
December 2007
Are you ready? Shopping done? Calendar filled with "must dos"? Have you caught the spirit yet? It is hard to make it "feel" like Christmas. Traditions help. Familiar smells, songs, and rituals help us transition into the mood. But, ultimately Christmas can't be forced or willed. Catching Christmas is about waiting and watching. It is about being available and open to an old story in a modern time. And just when we think we won't "feel" it this year, a moment happens.
A "moment" happened to me already and in November.Let me share my moment just in case you miss yours this season and need to borrow one. Children's Ministries and our preschool/church families are supporting The Night Ministries for homeless youth this year; this includes homeless pregnant teens. This month, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are collecting baby items to give to these young girls as they prepare for motherhood. Recently, I was chatting in the hall at drop-off with a grandmother of one of our AJN Tots. She and her daughter are putting together baskets of clothing and items to welcome these precious babies. She mentioned that they are thinking of using plastic laundry baskets with ribbons woven through the holes instead of wicker baskets because a homeless mother might want to use the laundry basket for a bed for the baby. And I thought-Christmas! Not hay and wood but plastic and ribbons. Later that morning our preschool 3s sang it in Chapel. "Away in a manger no crib for a bed..." This is the Christmas story isn't it? He was born in a stable because there was no room, and He lay in a manger because there was no crib. Centuries later, a homeless mother and hopefully a father will welcome a baby. This baby will have a "home"; a plastic basket decorated with colorful ribbons and filled with warm blankets lovingly prepared by those "with" for those "without." Looking for the Christmas spirit? Look in the manger. We will find a baby, and we find our Christmas in the man He grew to be. Passionately and compassionately He struggled, and still struggles, to show the world a way to a Christmas kind of joy that lasts the whole year. He invites us every day to live His spirit, to see with His eyes, to help make this world-in thousands of small ways-the world God intends it to be. Whether we are weaving a basket with ribbons or rocking a crying child or answering the phone or washing clothes or sharing a cup of coffee or standing in line, we are doing His work. This work gives us purpose and in this purpose we find Christmas, a Christmas that will carry us into the New Year. "He has no hands but ours!"