
Christmas is a challenge about desire and expectation. In this season, there are many people who will be yearning for family or friends. There are others who will wish for a handful of food. Still others will hope that they and their loved ones won’t be killed before morning. And a few will wonder if they will be able to buy that billion dollar yacht they have been lusting after.
Thomas Merton once reflected that praying for peace was a waste of spiritual energy. If peace were really a shared objective, we could have stopped fighting a long time ago. Similarly, there is enough food to feed the whole world. Famine can be resolved. In fact, almost every social ill can be cured if we choose. A new arena or small affordable homes? Food banks or guaranteed incomes? The solutions are within reach.
Yet we keep begging God to save us when we have been given everything we need for everyone to thrive.
It reminds me of novels about meeting aliens from space and how we would communicate. Right now, we know that other primates have a sense of humour and express loyalty. Octopi are tool-using. Elephants have complex social structures. Bees have peculiar communication systems. Crows are very smart and have excellent visual memory. But if we cannot communicate with the other creatures with whom we share the planet, how could we possibly manage with a species with a different terrestrial experience?
The incarnation is a reminder for us that God remains deeply invested and intricately involved in every aspect of creation. We can look at a tiny mollusc or gaze up at the mystery of the stars. We can read deep philosophy or play with an infant. We can do these things and are opened to wonder and awe of the Divine in our midst. We don’t really need to pray for God to come. Instead we need to open our minds and hearts to find the child within, calling to the hearts of the holy children around, us in every fibre of life.
What we desire will depend on what we expect, and on how willing we are to receive the divine as Life leaps within each of us, as Hope tells us to trust that God is in, and within, our midst.
The angel speaks to us all, “Don’t be afraid. Let the Divine grow with you in joy and peace.”