A Blessed Christmas, May You Experience God "Who is as Close as Breath" to Each of Us as we Rejoice in Jesus' Birth this day!

A reading by Jane Keener-Quiat and Rex Hunt

We celebrate today God-with-us
beyond our words, beyond our images,
for we know God is beyond those things.

But today we find joy in the image of God
coming to us in the form of a child.

We sense God’s presence in creation
and in the immensity of our universe,
in the incredible display of life on this planet,
and in our consciousness
of something far greater than ourselves.

As Christians we rejoice in the birth of Jesus.
In him we see the fullness of possibility
to make God visible in our lives.

Like all of us he grew in wisdom as he aged.
He questioned. He searched for meaning.
He shaped his convictions.

He experienced love and came to know
love’s connectedness with God.

He stood firmly in his own religious tradition

and preached good news to all people dreaming

of a better humanity.

We rejoice that he taught us not to imagine

a manipulative, intervening God,

but one who is as close as breath
and as soft as a whisper,
yet as powerful in the focus of our lives,

as were the mighty (prophets) in the Old Testament

drawing us toward the good.

We rejoice that Jesus led people to discover
the sacred in the ordinary,

in the lowly, in everyday life,

in human yearnings to be better people,

and in being neighbor to one another.

Bread and wine,

the fruit of vine and earth.

May these ordinary things be blessed.

For they represent both the ordinary and the extraordinary

as Jesus calls us to follow him.

And when we go out, may we share
generously of this wonderful gift we have received.

These are the inspired words of Jane Keener-Quiat and Rex Hunt