“Grant me grace this day
to rest and remember
that there is nothing I have to do
nothing I have to buy or sell,
nothing I have to produce or consume
in order to become who I truly am:
your beloved creation.
May your overworked creation
and those who cannot rest today
come to know the liberation of your sabbath.”
~Sam Hamilton-Poore

Yesterday I was busily working on worship liturgies for the next several weeks when my eyes fell on these words. Tucked into a book of prayers and poems for worship called Earth Gospel, this small prayer called to my heart. In these days when many of us awake with lists as long as our arm already forming, these thoughtful words were welcome.

I have not traveled much to the malls these last weeks. My shopping for Christmas presents is, I would say, half way finished. The one time I did walk into the crowded hallways of the mall nearest to our house, I was struck with the desperation, or weariness, I saw on many of the faces there. I have to admit to being caught up in compassion for those people who must have been searching for something ‘perfect’, something perhaps just out of their reach. I was so caught up that I didn’t make much progress on my own list. I left with a certain empty feeling, a feeling of sadness.

So many expectations get layered onto this time of year. Expectations about the gifts we will offer, the gifts we will receive. Expectations about how far our financial resources will stretch and how we will be able to give to those we know are less fortunate than we are. There are expectations of family, always a complicated fabric, of who will be present, who will be absent, and all the myriad of ‘whys’ that accompany that inner dialogue. The fact that the movies and television shows we watch at this time of year are created to tug at those heartstrings of relationship complicates our feeling about this season even more.

And yet, the joy of this season lies not in perfection or the right gift but in remembering that we are all beloved of the One whose incarnation we celebrate. This remembering is difficult to achieve when we are travelling at warp speed. It can really only by touched by stripping away all the trappings, all the grasping, all the distractions we humans infuse into our living.

So, on this day when lists may be growing and the messages of ‘how many days are left till Christmas’ bellow from advertisers, I invite you to rest. Rest and remember that Christmas will come, does come, and the message of this blessed season is so much more than our pursuit after the perfect gift.  Resting and remembering that we are beloved…..now there is a gift to pass on and on and on.