Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air...
Hope spreads around the earth, brightening all things,
Even hate, which crouches breeding in dark corridors...
We beckon this good season to wait awhile with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you to stay awhile with us.
There is a spiritual hearth at the heart of every person, congregation, and diocese. The fire is ignitable precisely where we have a passion to begin again in the face of immense community and cultural brokenness. Perhaps there has never been a time in history where the need for rekindling has matched so strongly with the individual and communal desire to "begin again."
~ from AWAKENING GRASSROOTS SPIRITUALITY: A CELTIC GUIDE FOR NURTURING THE SOUL by Edwin M. Leidel