Merry Christmas!
Christmas is the feast day for Pilgrim Endurance. It’s all about the Incarnation, God showing up in a very specific way! Embody your spirituality, we say. In too many ways, the spiritual life has been expressed as a matter of the mind. The conversation has centered around what you think about particular ideas. We’re working to support people to bring the focus from the mind throughout the body and how we relate with ourselves, the people around us, and all of God’s creation we encounter. This community loves to seek God in the wilderness and regularly makes time for that. You know that God can show up in very specific ways out there, and it’s often out of your control or not what you expected.
There’s this experience of awe and wonder: at the power of the thunderclap or the sparkle of the snow falling through a beam of light. It’s a mountaintop sunrise or the quietest night you’ve ever experienced. It’s that fellow traveler who helped you find water or the one who let you into their shelter when the blizzard blew in.
Here’s my blessing for you:
In our call to constant conversion of life, may this Christmas be an opportunity for you to join God on the path of becoming more like Jesus.
May you incarnate God’s presence to your world in a new way.
May you be willing to be surprised by the way God breaks through into your life and into other people’s lives through you.
May you find this darkest time of the year to be the fertile womb for what God is trying to birth in you and your community this coming year.
May you find the light of the world in the most unexpected places and have the chance to celebrate that!
May your running enrich your encounters with Christ in the wilderness.
May this community be fulfilling companionship for your endeavors into the wilderness (of landscapes, of relationships, and of your own heart).
May your encounters with God in the wilderness this season bear fruit in the building up of the Reign of God in your life, your family, your community, and the world.
It’s an honor to be your companion on this journey,
Chris
