Christ Church welcomes you.
We are a community of faith called to seek and serve Christ in All persons at the crossroads: The Body of Christ offering Infinite Respect and Radical Hospitality To All.
Service Times
Directions
Contact Christ Church
What's Happening
Please follow us ... 
Musings
Slowing to the Speed of Snow
Rev. Peter Faass | 12/8/2010
Five years of living in Cleveland and I still am
surprised by the unpredictable lake effect snows! Today the forecast was for
“light snow” yet I have just come from outside where I shoveled what has to be a
foot of snow already on the ground and it is still falling. As I look out at the
beauty of the newly fallen snow I am humming this lovely Christmas carol:
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made
moan;
earth stood hard as iron, water like a
stone.
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on
snow;
in the bleak midwinter, long
ago.
Today’s surprise storm has forced me to slow down a bit. I had a
long list of tasks to accomplish that required driving, but choose (wisely) to
focus on some items that I needed to write. I love being compelled to slow down
for a while. It seems like the two forces left in the world that have that power
over us are illness and severe weather.
The truth is there are other
forces or factors that should also slow us down, but many of us have just
forgone them as no longer relevant and not worth our time. In an article
describing his discovery of Christmas celebrations in other cultures, David
Sedaris writes this,
“People who traditionally open gifts on Christmas
Eve seem a bit more pious and family-oriented than those who wait until
Christmas morning. They go to Mass, open presents, eat a late meal, return to
church the following morning, and devote the rest of the day to eating another
big meal. Gifts are generally reserved for children, and the parents tend not to
go overboard. It's nothing I'd want for myself, but I suppose it's fine for
those who prefer food and family to things of real value.”
Sedaris is a
brilliant satirist and of course his tongue in check comment about preferring
the “real value” of material acquisition at Christmas over and above food and
family is meant to make us laugh. But I suspect it is a laugh with a twinge of
nervousness in it because we can see a bit of ourselves in his satire.
Food and family are two
factors that should slow us down from the hectic lives we lead. In fact I
suggest that the two go together, hand in glove. Or maybe better put, like Jesus
and the holy meal of the Eucharist. After all, what is this powerful sacrament
but a family dinner? Slowing down to break bread in a leisurely manner and
engage in honest conversation about our lives with one another is a sacrament.
Which leads me to the most important factor of all that should slow us down:
God.
In our attentiveness to the
presence of God in our lives we are compelled to slow down and see the Holy One.
Advent is a time of slowing
down and being attentive to the coming presence of God in the world; in the gift
of the food that graces our table, in the friends and family who break bread
with us, in the softly falling snow of the bleak midwinter.
Advent, like the snow, is a gift to slow us down
and to apprehend and love the gift of life we have been given. It is something
that I want for myself. My prayer is that you will want it for yourself as
well.
Peter +
