12 Quotes for 2016

12 Beautiful Quotes To Inspire You In 2016

Meditate on these words as you celebrate New Year's Eve.

12/28/2015 06:53 pm ET

• Carol Kuruvilla Religion Associate Editor, The Huffington Post

New Year's Eve is one of those rare moments during the year when regardless of religion, age or nationality, people around the world take a break from their busy lives to celebrate the startling fact they've made it another 365 days.

As you head into the new year, we hope these quotes from both spiritual and secular thinkers will help you reflect on 2015 and hope wildly for all that is to come in 2016.

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A Nation Divided by Fear

A Nation Divided by Fear: Studies Reveal How and Why We Target Muslims, Immigrants

Fifty-six percent of Americans believe houses or rooms can be haunted. One in five believes Bigfoot is a real creature; about the same percentage are afraid of zombies.
Yet at least until the walking dead put up their own candidate in the New Hampshire primary, those are not the concerns that should frighten us the most.
Fears can become toxic, research finds, when they turn groups of people against one another, breaking down the sense of social trust that enables nations and communities to work together for the common good.
America may be nearing such a critical tipping point.
A new set of studies surveying fears in 2014 and 2015 offer insights into how much we are afraid of one another.

Here are some key findings from the Chapman Survey of American Fears:
• Almost twice as many Americans said you cannot be too careful in life as opposed to saying most people can be trusted. Among young adults, nearly three times as many were more likely to be careful than trusting.
• Half of Americans said they are at least somewhat afraid of people they do not know.
• Fewer than half said they would feel safe helping a stranger who ran out of gas on the road.
The fears and distrust often target the most vulnerable among us.
Nearly four in 10 Americans in the Chapman study said immigrants bring diseases into the country, and illegal immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.
By a significant margin, Americans have the warmest feelings toward whites, with a rating of 74 on the feeling thermometer scale in the study. Way down toward the bottom, below even immigrants and just slightly ahead of atheists, are Muslims, with a rating of 50 on the scale.
A nearly threefold increase in hate crimes against Muslims and mosques in the last month, one study found, is evidence that they make easy targets. Politicians who would not dare target majority groups in the same manner float proposals such as banning all Muslims from entering the country.
But it is a dangerous game.
"When we get too fearful, we tend to get more emotional than logical, and you can actually create the threat that you fear," said Chapman sociologist Christopher Bader, a lead study researcher.
Fear beyond reason
Compared to 20 years ago, what do you think has been the rate of crimes such as child abductions, mass shootings, gang violence, school shootings and pedophilia and other sexually predatory acts against children?
If you are like most Americans, according to the Chapman study, you believe there has been a marked increase in such terrifying offenses.
In truth, from available statistics, there are fewer such crimes in each category; in some cases there have been dramatic declines, Bader noted.
What the Chapman studies help us understand is how our fears can override reason when they touch on deeper parts of the human psyche. These include our fears of things Americans perceive as beyond their control, such as the government and advances in technology, Bader said.
So, in the 2015 Chapman study, despite little evidence of major scandals, the greatest fear was of government corruption, with 58 percent saying they were either very afraid or afraid of such malfeasance.
The next two top fears were of cyber-terrorism and corporate tracking of personal data, followed closely by the fear of a terrorist attack.
Deeply ingrained fears of "the other" reveal themselves in the latter.
It may have been white men who blew up a federal building with a day care center inside it in Oklahoma City or shot up a school in Newtown, Conn., or more recently committed mass murder in a black church in Charleston, S.C., - a reported attempt to start a race war.
But those atrocities are largely interpreted as individual acts of terrorism.
In contrast, our innate fears of people who are different enable us to assign collective responsibility - and engage in indiscriminate measures of reprisal - to groups that are different, several studies have found.
However, too much fear based on too little reality can have dangerous consequences.
In the case of crime, a reasonable amount of concern can lead people to take responsible action such as forming block watches or looking out for one another in public places such as parks, Bader noted.
However, ramp up the fare of crime too much, and it can be overwhelming, leading people to avoid public parks and neighborhood walks. So the area becomes less safe as public space is ceded to the people most likely to commit crimes, researchers have found.
Similarly, anti-terrorism efforts have been effective in identifying individuals most likely to commit such crimes and actions can be taken against them.
Moreover, a 2014 Duke University study found that since the attacks of Sept. 11, more Muslim-American terrorism suspects and perpetrators were brought to the attention of law enforcement by members of the Muslim-American community than through federal investigations.
Yet, the reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have created a moral panic among many Americans that seeks to hold each member of a religious minority accountable.
Recent examples of such apparent "third-party revenge" ranged from shots fired at a Connecticut mosque and a fire set in the prayer area of an Ohio mosque to a sixth-grade girl in the Bronx reportedly being attacked by three boys who tried to take off the hijab she was wearing.
Leading GOP presidential contenders have made startling proposals appealing to these fears. Donald Trump seeks to establish a religious test for immigration by banning all Muslims. Ted Cruz proposes the revenge fantasy of carpet bombing ISIS into oblivion.
Yet the available research suggests this type of indiscriminate response is a road to a downward cycle of violence and persecution, heightening tensions and increasing grievances that potentially feed violence.
So how can we build social trust and become a safer society?
First, research suggests, we have to realize this is not going to be easy. It is not only cultural but genetic traits that lead us to fear others outside our group
"Be not afraid" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" may be clarion calls of Scripture for the nation's majority faith, but in the Chapman study mainline Protestants, evangelicals and Catholics all expressed less warmth toward Muslims than the general public.
Education needs to be a priority, analysts contend.
Helping people become aware of and understand the psychological mechanisms behind hatred may open doors to reason, compassion and an awareness of what can be the "absurdity" of human antipathy toward other groups," says researcher Willa Michener of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"If human feelings of enmity are innate and spontaneous, they are not infinitely strong. It is possible to overcome them, but people need a reason to do it," she writes.
Sociologist Bader hopes research such as the Chapman studies will help Americans become aware of the distance between many of their fears and reality, and to understand the psychology of fear that helps drive emotional responses against minority groups.
"There's always fear of the other, the people we don't understand, the people who are different from us," Bader said.
"Let's not have our fears create a more dangerous world."
David Briggs writes the Ahead of the Trend column for the Association of Religion Data Archives.

If I'm Your Token Muslim Friend...

Amani Mohsen Become a fan

If I'm Your Token Muslim Friend...

Posted: 12/25/2015 1:37 pm EST Updated: 12/27/2015 10:59 pm EST

If I'm your token Muslim friend, here's what I need you to know. First and foremost, thank you for being such a good friend. I call you a good friend because you have every right to your opinion on what is going on in the world right now, and could easily denounce our friendship, but you didn't, and so I thank you.

Next, I need you to make more friends. Please don't take this the wrong way. I just hope that your circle includes more than just me because I am not, nor is any one person, a true symbol of any religious phenomenon (or race, or any group for that matter). If I'm your token Muslim friend, realize that all Muslims don't look, talk, or act LIKE ME. If I didn't tell you I was Muslim, you wouldn't know I was one, whereas the hijabi walking down the street makes it obvious.

We Muslims roll in all shapes and sizes, colors and genders. There's Malcolm X style Muslims, and there are grandma and grandpa Egyptian Muslims. There's rappers like Mos Def, and gay Imams like Imam Daayiee Abdullah. None of us are the same. And if you put us all in one room, we may even have different opinions about life.

If I'm your token Muslim, let's get the stereotypes out of the way. Not all Muslims are abiding. Some Muslims drink, some Muslims eat pork, some Muslims are praying in the mosque, some Muslims are praying in their homes, some Muslims cover their heads (cough cough Nuns do too), some Muslims cover their face.

If I'm your token Muslim, please note that Islam has rules much like many religions and people follow them as humans naturally do (some do, some don't). If I'm your token Muslim, please don't tell me, "but you're not one of them" - NO - THEY ARE NOT ONE OF US! Honestly, what does that question even mean?

If I'm your token Muslim friend, please know that it is not my job in every conversation we have for me to denounce what is happening in the world as a result of "ISIS" or individuals who shout "Allah Akbar" before doing something stupid. That would be like me asking one single "white person" to explain what's up with the KKK, or why did Hitler go on his rampage, or why any small part of a larger group did what they did.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, let's educate ourselves together via the multiple available resources to find out what's happening in the world and be open minded to our sources. If you'd rather not know, no problem. I get like that too and binge watch mindless TV instead just to shut off the constant negativity.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, please don't feel bad for me. Let's do something about it. Complacency is the enemy. Let's make a difference together - "thoughts and prayers" wont work.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, know that my parents taught me that being a good Muslim meant being a good person to others and kept it that simple. My family went on to teach me that being a good Muslim meant to give praise to God because God is the only one in the end that can judge me.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, know that we can still be friends even if you don't believe in God. I'm not here to convert you. I'm here to go on road trips, listen to music, eat delicious food, and have awesome conversations with you, my friend.

If I'm your token Muslim friend, don't be afraid to ask me questions, but understand, I don't know everything, and we can find answers together. Dont be afraid to talk about Muslims out loud -- you don't have to whisper. Feel free to talk about Muslims just like you would talk about anyone else because we are all human beings! "Hey, did you know that my electrician is Muslim? He's just like us!"

If I'm your token Muslim friend, please know that I am always learning about Islam, too. I'm constantly challenging passages in the Quran and trying to learn more about the peace that is within Islam. I am also learning about other faiths because I know we have more in common than anything else.

If I am your token Muslim friend, please know that I have a faith that believes in you and I being friends and us making the life we live a peaceful one for ALL.

Seeker Spirituality & Publishing

How Seeker Spirituality Is Shaping The World Of Publishing

Harper's new line of books is tailored toward spiritual explorers of all sorts.

12/28/2015 06:33 pm ET | Updated 13 hours ago

• Antonia Blumberg Associate Religion Editor, The Huffington Post

For some, the journey of spiritual self-discovery begins by picking up a book -- and there couldn’t be a better time to do so.

This fall, HarperOne, the San Francisco-based imprint of HarperCollins, launched HarperElixir, a line of books specifically targeting people who seek the answers to life’s big questions.

“The audience is the modern seeker… people who are spiritual and magical and passionate and curious and they want to answer the call to go deeper,” said Claudia Boutote, senior vice president and publisher of HarperElixir.

Boutote and senior editor Libby Edelson kicked off the line with The Toltec Art of Life and Death by Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The New York Times bestseller The Four Agreements. They also published books by psychologist Carol S. Pearson and relationship expert Arielle Ford, as well as two adult coloring books by Lydia Hess.

Just three months in, Boutote said the new line captures the zeitgeist of American spirituality while building on the legacy that authors like Ruiz have nurtured over the last few decades.

“A couple of years ago, [HarperOne] started to see that all of a sudden there was a new burgeoning of seekers that was bubbling up. … We felt we’d be able to contribute to that contemporary conversation,” said Boutote, who has worked at HarperOne for 11 years.

It’s clear the audience for books on spirituality will continue to grow. Religious “nones,” or people who are religiously unaffiliated but seek spirituality and transformation in nontraditional places, make up the second-largest and fastest-growing spiritual category in the United States. And HarperOne’s backlist of over 400 older books in the "mind, body, spirit" category continue to sell year after year, Boutote said.

HarperElixir joins the ranks of publishing houses like Hay House and Harmony Books that have made the "mind, body, spirit" movement a marketable category unto itself. HarperOne has been churning out works by spirituality-focused authors like Deepak Chopra, Ram Das and Marianne Williamson for decades.

But HarperElixir is even more specialized, specifically targeting spiritual seekers. The line occupies the territory “where hippie meets hipster,” Boutote said, drawing in a new generation while staying true to older readers who were raised on the likes of Chopra and Das and who are “still seeking, just at a different stage of life.”

Many of the line’s upcoming authors for 2016 have yet to become household names. Kim Krans, illustrator of The Wild Unknown tarot cards, and Guru Jagat, a Kundalini yoga teacher recently featured in Los Angeles Magazine and pictured below, will have titles out with HarperElixir in the upcoming year. For Boutote, any one of these new authors could be the spiritual powerhouses of tomorrow.

“When wisdom is very pure and authentic, it’s lasting, and it really does stand the test of time,” Boutote told HuffPost. “Those are the authors we are looking to publish here -- authors who will have something to publish for today, but what they say will be relevant for years to come.”

Seeker spirituality is broad and can include many different practices and worldviews, which is why books published under HarperElixir will cover everything from yoga and happiness coaching to astrology and healing crystals. What unites the titles, Boutote said, is that they all strive to help people trying to answer questions like “Where am I going? What happens when I die? How can I connect with the divine?” 

“We’re asking these big questions and hoping to help answer them for people,” she said.

Also on HuffPost:

26 Books Every 'Spiritual But Not Religious' Seeker Should Read

MORE:

Seekers, Spirituality, Harpercollins, Harperone, Harperelixir, Religious Nones, Nones, Don Miguel Ruiz, Guru Jagat, Astrology, Tarot

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New Traditions For The Holidays for the Grieving

How The Grieving Are Turning To New Traditions For The Holidays

It's not always the most wonderful time of year for those who have lost loved ones.

12/23/2015 06:01 pm ET | Updated 4 days ago

The Dinner Party

The Dinner Party gatherings are often communal meals, and many include toasts to the departed, such as one Jen Patton hosted in Greenville, South Carolina.

Two weeks ahead of Christmas, Rebecca Riffkin welcomed a motley group of 20-somethings and 30-somethings to her southeast Washington, D.C., apartment for a holiday dinner with a seemingly un-holiday theme.

The eight guests sat for two hours over a hodgepodge meal that included homemade hearty tomato soup, fresh popcorn and chocolate-dipped strawberries to tell stories and glean wisdom from the one thing each had in common. Strangers just months ago before the monthly meals again, they had come together to support each other in a way few others in their lives could.

During a time of the year full of diverse family reunions and Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's traditions, these city transplants each had experienced a painful family death in recent years. Many were like 26-year-old Riffkin, whose 53-year-old father Matthew suddenly died a year ago from a heart condition.

The foods that evening were favorites of their loved ones. The tales shared were of holiday traditions, like Riffkin’s of bargain shopping for a Christmas tree each year with her father and sister on the night of Christmas Eve before coming home to decorate it. Some conversations turned to strategizing what to do this time of year without their loved ones.

“We can be vulnerable on grief and loss,” said Riffkin, who works as a writer at the Gallup polling organization and is spending Christmas with her mother and sister at home in Salt Lake City. She hosts the meals as part of The Dinner Party, a network of young people who have experienced death and come together over food in more than 50 cities cities from Anchorage to Sydney. “The people at my table know me better than some coworkers and friends,” Riffkin said.

If one of your core people isn’t around, that empty place by the fire, or the phone number that won’t connect you anymore, becomes hard to ignore. Carla Fernandez, co-founder of The Dinner Party

As the season peaks this week with family get-togethers, vacations, parties and New Year's celebrations, it’s a time of joy for many. For those whose loved ones have died, it can also be a painful reminder.

The holiday time is “the moment when the world reminds us that we should be curled up with the ones we love. It’s when the onslaught of emails hits our inbox reminding us to buy a present for Mom,” said Carla Fernandez, 27, who launched The Dinner Party two years ago in Los Angeles with her friends, Lennon Flowers and Dara Kosberg, after her dad’s death.

“It’s when water cooler conversation at the office focuses on who we’re heading home to, and when the streets empty because most of us are kicking back with people we love. If one of your core people isn’t around, that empty place by the fire, or the phone number that won’t connect you anymore, becomes hard to ignore.”

The group is just one community addressing and thinking of what is for some the best times of year and, for others, the worst. In recent years, a host of resources and communities have come together online and offline around grief during the holidays. During a time of tradition, these Americans are forming new ones and rethinking old ones.

“Honestly, this time of year, the phone rings off the hook with emergencies and tragedies,” said the Rev. Nancy Taylor, senior minister of Old South Church in Boston.

Last week, the congregation held a Blue Christmas Service, following an Advent tradition of prayer on the longest night of the year, when many churches observe the lives of those who have departed or are suffering.

Blue, too, is a true color of the season. The Rev. Nancy Taylor, Old South Church

It was “a reminder that the season is not all festive reds and greens. Blue, too, is a true color of the season,” said Taylor. “We sang carols in bluesy, jazzy tones. We prayed our sad prayers and wrapped an aching earth in all the hope and love we could muster. We lit our four Advent candles to pierce the world’s darkness with brave flames of peace, hope, joy and love. We gave thanks to God for coming into the world as it is, imperfect and bruised.”

For grief counselors, too, the holidays are a busy season.

“I see more people raw than any other time this time of year,” said David Kessler, who runs HolidayGrief.com and is the co-author of You Can Heal Your Heart: Finding Peace After a Breakup, Divorce, or Death. “I tell them there’s no right way to handle it. Your loved one’s life was unique, their death is unique, so grief will be unique.”

Kessler noted that while there’s a popular view that more people die during the holidays, it’s actually a myth with roots in grief and the longer nights of cold and darkness. “Death is more prevalent in our psyche this time of year. A loved one that dies around the holidays can send a bigger shock wave.”

That’s been much of the focus recently for Litsa Williams, a clinical social worker in Baltimore who is the co-founder and program director of “What’s Your Grief?” a three-year-old website that’s seen an uptick in visitors this month.

“We have very specific ideas of what holidays should look like," said Williams, 35, whose father died when she was 19. "Some are just from our culture or media, others are from our real experiences. But it’s different when people realize their holidays don’t look like that anymore,” 

On What's Your Grief, the current top article is titled, “10 Times Grief Made You Cry This Holiday Season.” No. 5: “When you heard their least favorite holiday song.” No. 7: “When you found a gift they would have loved.”

We have very specific ideas of what holidays should look like. Some are just from our culture or media, others are from our real experiences. But it’s different when people realize their holidays don’t look like that anymore. Litsa Williams, co-founder of "What's Your Grief?"

“It’s not going to be the same. How do we get into that? What are we going to do?,” said Williams, echoing some of the questions addressed on her latest podcast with website co-founder Eleanor Haley.

In Salt Lake City, where Riffkin will see her mom and younger sister for Christmas, she’ll attempt continuing family traditions without her dad.

“I tried to go buy a tree this year without him, but was really nervous,” said Riffkin, who said she’ll try again with her sister to “carry the torch” and bargain hunt, hoping to score a fir for less than $20. “We’d always kick Dad out of the house and do a cookie exchange party, just for the girls and my mom’s friends. It will be different this year, but we’re going to try. We’ll do our best.”

Also on HuffPost:

Tattoos That Honor Grief Beautifully

Principles of the Just War

*The “Principles of the Just War”

• A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
• A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
• A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
• A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
• The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
• The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.

The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

Pope Francis Rebukes Consumerism

Pope Francis Rebukes Consumerism In Christmas Eve Mass

12/24/2015 11:36 pm ET | Updated 22 hours ago

Frances D'Emilio

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In his Christmas Eve homily Thursday, Pope Francis noted the simplicity of Jesus' birth as he rebuked what he called societies' intoxication with consumerism, pleasure, abundance and wealth.

Christians around the world joyfully prepared to recall the birth of Jesus. But in his only public Christmas Mass, in the splendor of St. Peter's Basilica, the pope counter-weighted his joy with a lament for people's excesses and what he described as a "culture of indifference, which not infrequently turns ruthless."

Francis said Jesus "calls us to act soberly, in other words, in a way that is simple, balanced, consistent, capable of seeing and doing what is essential."

Referring to Jesus' birth in a Bethlehem stable, the pope said the child was "born into the poverty of this world; there was no room in the inn for him and his family."

Francis also sounded a cry to right injustices. "In a world which all too often is merciless to the sinner and lenient to the sin, we need to cultivate a strong sense of justice," he said.

Since being elected pope in 2013, Francis has tried to shape the church into one marked more by loving mercy than rigid judgment. He insists that the needs of the poor and others, including refugees and migrants, be paramount.

Youngsters from countries that Francis has visited as pontiff, including Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the United States and most recently, three African nations, left floral bouquets around a baby Jesus statue near the central altar after Francis unveiled and gently kissed the statue.

A child from Mexico, which the pope visits in February, was also among the bouquet bearers.

On Friday, tens of thousands of people are expected to crowd into St. Peter's Square to hear the traditional Christmas day speech, which in the past has been used to denounce wars, other violence and injustice across the globe.

Pope Condemns Islamic State Terrorism In Christmas Message

The pontiff condemned recent "brutal acts of terrorism," including the Nov. 13 attacks by Islamist militants that killed 130 people in Paris.

12/25/2015 07:34 am ET

BRUTAL TERRORISM
The pontiff condemned recent "brutal acts of terrorism," including the Nov. 13 attacks by Islamist militants that killed 130 people in Paris, and the downing of a Russian plane over Egypt's Sinai peninsula that killed 224 people on Oct. 31. Both were claimed by Islamic State.
"Only God's mercy can free humanity from the many forms of evil, at times monstrous evil, which selfishness spawns in our midst," he said. "The grace of God can convert hearts and offer mankind a way out of humanly insoluble situations.".
He called for peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the area where Jesus was born.
"Where peace is born, there is no longer room for hatred and for war. Yet precisely where the incarnate Son of God came into the world, tensions and violence persist, and peace remains a gift to be implored and built," he said.
He asked God to bring consolation and strength to Christians who are being persecuted around the world and called for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, South Sudan and Ukraine.
Francis said the human dignity of far too many people around the world was trampled on, including that of refugees and migrants.
"Even today great numbers of men and women are deprived of their human dignity and, like the child Jesus, suffer cold, poverty, and rejection," he said.
"May our closeness today be felt by those who are most vulnerable, especially child soldiers, women who suffer violence, and the victims of human trafficking and the drug trade." (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Three More Books

Three More Books

            After publishing (Wipf and Stock), Thanks: Giving and Receiving Gratitude for America’s Troops: A Soldier’s Stories, A Veteran’s Confessions and A Pastor’s Reflections, I plan at least three more books. In first draft are both: Spiritual Insight Training for Veterans (SIT) and Vows+: How to Plan and What to Say at Your Wedding. Partway finished is: God and America’s Wars. I also am planning a DVD on Christian Symbolism

Spiritual Insight Training for Veterans (SIT) will be a workbook for groups of veterans in peer-to-peer sessions to apply the “Techniques” of “Spiritual Direction” or “Theological Reflection” to Issues particular to America’s Current and Past Warriors.Techniques include: Spiritual Reading, Prayer, Worship

Self-Emptying/Fasting, Confession, Hospitality, Developing an Ethos-Group Cohesion, Morale and Discernment. Issues particular to America’s Current and Past Warriors include: The Reality of War; Moral injury, PTSD, Disconnection (Both from Non/Military Persons and from “Different” Veterans), A “Just” War/Military Ethics” A Proper Mission for America, the Temptation to kill officers, The Charge: God was AWOL during Vietnam, and The Sense that, “My Soul is Damaged”

Vows+: How to Plan and What to Say at Your Wedding is a guidebook for grooms and brides. God and America’s Wars. is a historical/theological work. My DVD on Christian Symbolism features the artwork of United University Church on the north edge of the university of Southern California’s campus.

Close to God's Heart

Close to God's Heart

January 03, 2016
Written by Kathryn Matthews (Huey)

Sunday, January 3
Second Sunday after Christmas

Focus Theme
Close to God's Heart

Weekly Prayer
Gracious God,You have redeemed us through Jesus Christ, the first-born of all creation, whose birth we celebrate as the child of Bethlehem. Bless us with every spiritual blessing, that we may live as your adopted children and witness to your glory with unending praise and thanksgiving. Amen.

Focus Scripture
John 1: [1-9] 10-18

[In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.] He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

(John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

All Readings For This Sunday
Jeremiah 31:7-14 or Sirach 24:1-12
Psalm 147:12-20 or Wisdom 10:15-21
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:[1-9], 10-18

Focus Questions

1. What Christmas carol do you think best expresses the Light coming into the world?

2. What is your greatest experience of homecoming?

3. What good news are you waiting to hear, or waiting to see fulfilled?

4. What word does your congregation bring to life?

5. What difference has the light shining on your life made in the life of the world?

Reflection by Kate Matthews (Huey)

Our reading from the Gospel of John is one of the most familiar and yet most transcendently beautiful passages in the Bible, which may prove quite a challenge if John's lofty theology and language transcend our ability to grasp its profound meaning. Perhaps the thoughts expressed in John's Prologue are too immense for us, although they lay out the very themes John will develop in his Gospel; scholars refer to this passage as an "overture" to the rest of the Gospel. "No one has ever seen God," John writes, and indeed has anyone ever been able to find words that do justice to such a passage?

And yet, that may be the point of the reading: that the transcendent, beyond-words God took on flesh, came to us, found us, sought us out, took on our own existence, with its pains, its sorrows, its vulnerability and its joys. Stephen Bauman says it especially well: "God," he writes, "is embedded with us in the human predicament." When has God seemed far away and beyond your reach? When has God felt near at hand, as One who understands what you are struggling with, what your church may be struggling with, understands even the things you cannot put into words?

Grace upon grace

Jesus Christ shows us who God is, and we have received from his fullness, "grace upon grace." This phrase sets a tone for this new year, especially when so many people are still struggling out of deep economic troubles. It may be secular heresy to see plenty right now, to see abundance, to see fullness even in a time like this. However, if we can claim that there is more than enough of everything we need most - forgiveness and reconciliation, grace, life, truth, joy, generosity, healing, and justice - perhaps we can also believe that there is more than enough of what our bodies need to live on: food, water, land, clothing, and shelter.

When it comes to grace, Beverly Gaventa reminds us that we're not the only ones blessed by the light of God, for "all people, whether they believe it or not, live in a world illuminated by the light just as they live in a world created by the Word. What they are called to do is to trust the light, to walk in it, and thereby to become children of light." Gaventa challenges us to live our lives "discovering the divine benevolence and reliability." Might this even be a first step on the path to peace, if we truly believe there is more than enough for all?

The fullness of God's grace

What does it mean to you, that "from his fullness, we have all received, grace upon grace"? What is grace? God's grace has brought us light, has brought us truth, has brought us home. Coming home is a profound human experience, loaded with feeling. It's even possible for a person to "live at home," but feel as if they are in exile. Who are the members of your community who may feel that they are in exile, in your midst? What difference should it make to them that God took on human flesh and shared our own experiences of suffering and death? God is still speaking to us today, calling us to seek out the lost, the alienated, the excluded, the exiles in our own time and place. How are you and your congregation reaching out and bringing home the alienated, the excluded and the exiles in your neighborhood, and in the world?

Sooner or later, all of us have the experience of walking "in the darkness." What is the "darkness" in which you walk, at times? How has the light of God's love and compassion, God's understanding and wisdom, delivered you from this kind of darkness? This week's reading from Jeremiah (31:7-14) describes Israel's joyful return from exile, by God's leading hand, providing a tender picture of the way God continues to reach out to save the people. In one way or another, this joyful return is the story of our own lives, too, in a very different time and place. In what ways have you experienced "exile"? What has homesickness felt like to you, as an individual? Is it possible to find words to describe the joy of homecoming?

"Into the bosom/embrace of the Father"

Our focus theme, Close to God's Heart, comes from the phrase in the passage that tries to describe the relationship between the first and second Persons of the Trinity. However, the translation in the NRSV might be better, according to The New Proclamation Commentary on the Gospels: "'with God' (v.1) is really 'towards God,' and 'close to the Father's heart' (v. 18) is really 'into the bosom/embrace of the Father,' both expressing a vibrant and active exchange." Barbara Brown Taylor reflects beautifully on the word, "'bosom,' an image that evokes the maternal as well as the paternal body of God. While no one has seen God, Jesus apparently knows where to lay his head….this Son knows how to listen to the heartbeat of his Father."

We might wonder today how our churches would be transformed if all of our members thought of themselves as witnesses who testify to the Light, as John did. And then we might dream of how the world around us would be transformed as well, for God is calling us today, to let our light shine, individually and as communities of faith. God's incredible gift of Jesus is one we can never repay, but there is a response we can give: the praise and thanks that we lift in prayer and song, especially in community. For example, as we pray our psalm reading for this week, Psalm 147, they're not just words on a page - they come alive when we think of the joys of homecoming, of God's mighty and tender deeds, of the Light that has come into the world, the world in which we all have known both exile and coming home. "God grants peace within your borders," the psalmist sings, "God fills you with the finest of wheat": there is that fullness again. What do these words feel like to you?

Singing the song all year

Despite what the world around us may say, Christmas is not over. In the church, we celebrate Christmas after a four-week observance of Advent that ends on Christmas Eve. In the world around us, we've been gathering with family and friends, exchanging gifts, holding pageants, and sending cards for several weeks. One of the most moving and memorable ways we celebrate Christmas, however, is singing Christmas carols. Our musical memory lasts through the years, from our childhood into our old age, the melodies familiar and comforting, the words hauntingly beautiful and instructive at the same time.

Sometimes, when a person has suffered a stroke or memory loss, they can still sing, and hymns have a particular power, as if they are imprinted on their hearts and minds. When my mother was recovering from a stroke at the age of 93, we listened together to a recording of "Panis Angelicus" on a Christmas CD, and it carried us both back to the childhood faith we shared, the one she passed on to me so long ago. The readings for this week are like hymns, too, and their lyrical celebration of God at work in the world, saving, vindicating, calling, and comforting, links us to our ancestors in faith who shared our common hope and longing. We sing together, with one another and with them, in a great chorus today.

God beyond our imagining, and as a little baby

John speaks of "the Word" that was present at creation, a mighty God, above our imagining or description, and yet this Word came into the world as a baby, small and vulnerable and sweet. It's hard to relate to a transcendent God, but we can relate to a baby, a mother, and, strangely enough, the shepherds who came to give homage (even though most of us have never been shepherds). Perhaps this paradox explains why singing Christmas carols helps us in our humble attempts to express the inexpressible - we cannot put into words the incredible mystery of God-made-flesh, and yet we have known it in our bones. We have felt God with us even when we could never explain how that could be.

Richard Burridge finds lovely meaning in this reading as it "affirms the world's goodness and the Word's involvement in creation" and "inspires the great Christian involvement in both the arts and the sciences." He observes that "[s]cientific inquiry is possible if the world is not some malicious fantasy but the result of a creator's love--to study the laws of physics is to search out the mind of God," and "rather than trying to escape the material body, our humanity can be explored in sculpture and paint, poetry and prose, dance and drama, music and song - because 'in him was life' (1:4)."

Waiting for God

Many of us are waiting for a messenger who will tell us that the tide has turned, that the day of vindication and hope has arrived, that God is still with us. Some of us have secretly, privately, in the deepest places of our hearts, given up hope. Or, worse, we may assume that it's all up to us, or that we can somehow make everything right, all by our own efforts, without a God who has chosen to be right here, right in the midst of everything that we face.

However, this season of Christmas does more than remind us of what God has done, rather, it proclaims that God is active in the world today, in this setting of history. We might feel tired and relieved that Christmas is over, but it would be better to feel energized and renewed by the good news of the gift of Jesus Christ every day, not just on one morning each year. What is the new thing that God is doing in the life of your congregation, in your own life, in the life of the United Church of Christ? Barbara Brown Taylor develops the theme of bringing a word to life, a word that each one of us "has a gift for bringing to life," whether that word is compassion, justice, generosity, patience, or love. "Until someone acts upon these words," she observes, "they remain abstract concepts--very good ideas that few people have ever seen. The moment someone acts on them, the words become flesh. They live among us, so we can see their glory." Taylor makes the same observation about congregations, who "embody words as well."

God's revelation

In this new day, in this brand new year, God is revealing God's own self in your life, in the life of your community. Hearing such good news, how are you, then, "anointed with the oil of gladness"? How will we continue to sing the joy of Christmas, to proclaim in the days ahead the good news of "grace upon grace," of our coming home and of God making a home in our midst? Perhaps Christmas morning is unlike all other mornings, but indeed it is like every other morning of our lives, too, because Jesus Christ is alive and God is at work in our lives, here and now.

Richard Ascough recalls a lovely image from Henri Nouwen's diary from Genesee Abbey, when he describes the Nativity set under the altar there, with "three small, featureless wooden figures representing the holy family. Although smaller than a human hand, a bright light shining upon them projected their large shadows upon the wall of the sanctuary." Nouwen observes: "Without the radiant beam of light shining into the darkness there is little to be seen. I might just pass by these three simple people and continue to walk in darkness. But everything changes with the light."

A preaching version of this commentary (with book titles) can be found at www.ucc.org/worship/samuel.

The Rev. Kathryn Matthews (Huey) serves as dean of Amistad Chapel at the national offices of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio (https://www.facebook.com/AmistadChapel).

You're invited to share your reflections on this text on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

For further reflection

Albert Einstein, 20th century
"I want to know God's thoughts - the rest are mere details."

Jonathan Edwards, 18th century
"Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected."

Mother Teresa, 20th century
"Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness."

Helen Keller, 20th century
"Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light."

John Philip Newell, 21st century
"[W]e need to find ways of sharing our intimate experiences of the Mystery, for we are one. It is through one another that we will know more of the Life that flows within us all.
It is through sharing our fragments of insight that we will come to a fuller picture of the One who is at the heart of each life.”

Madeleine L'Engle, 20th century
"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."

Anne Lamott, 21st century
"Sometimes grace works like waterwings when you feel you are sinking."

About Weekly Seeds

Weekly Seeds is a United Church of Christ resource for Bible study based on the readings of the "Lectionary," a plan for weekly Bible readings in public worship used in Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches throughout the world. When we pray with and study the Bible using the Lectionary, we are praying and studying with millions of others.

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Weekly Seeds is a service of Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ. Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Prayer is from The Revised Common Lectionary ©1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.