A congregation of the United Church of Canada
The Mood of Christmas
“It is an iridescence of sheer delight…”
As Christmas week goes on, and people make various connections with friends, or families, or social gatherings, I offer these words from one of my very favourite theologians, the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, who was a spiritual advisor to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This excerpt is from a book called ‘The Growing Edge’.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
“Christmas is a mood, a quality, a symbol. It is never merely a fact.
As a fact it is a date on the calendar — to the believer it is the anniversary of an event in human history.
An individual may relate (themselves) meaningfully to the fact or the event, but that would not be Christmas.
The mood of Christmas — what is it?
It is a quickening of the presence of other human beings into whose lives a precious part of one’s own has been released.
It is a memory of other days when into one’s path an angel appeared spreading a halo over an ordinary moment or a commonplace event.
It is an iridescence of sheer delight that bathes one’s whole being with something more wonderful than words can ever tell.
Of such is the mood of Christmas.”
Another Thurman quote from the same book…
“The birth of the child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!”
from ‘The Growing Edge’, by Howard Thurman