A MESSAGE FROM REV. LINDSEY ALTVATER CLIFTON: SPECIAL POETRY AND PRAYERS
Dear ones,
Many of you said that you appreciated a slightly different form of proclamation this past Sunday, which I was glad to hear! I’m always grateful for this congregation’s willingness to try something new.
For those of you who attended the Holy Ground 
service and asked us to share the two songs (or for those of you who didn’t but would like to hear them), you can find both pieces of music with lyrics at the links below:
Plowshare Prayer by Spencer LaJoye – https://spencerlajoye.bandcamp.com/track/plowshare-prayer
Peace for Your Christmas Time by MountainCity – https://mountaincity.bandcamp.com/track/peace-for-your-christmastime
For the folks who wanted the piece of poetry and prayer shared at both services, here you go:
The Risk of Birth
by Madeleine L’Engle
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honor & truth were trampled to scorn—
Yet here did the Savior make His home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn—
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
_________
Holy One,
You take on breath and flesh,
you come to us and show us Love’s way,
through the birth of a child,
dangerous as that can be,
to a family seeking refuge in a land that was not their own.
We give thanks for that risk and for your unstoppable love,
which topples all our notions of power and privilege,
and reorients us with a vision of Beloved Community and flourishing for all.
This Advent in particular, we wait with expectant hope and we remember:
even when the world is worn and weary,
even when we are worn and weary,
we each bear your divine image and spark,
we are each called to that Holy Infant’s work of peacemaking and justice-seeking.
So with deep gratitude we pray: Come, Lord Jesus…
May your Holy Spirit fill our hearts and animate our lives
for the sake of your love and compassion,
so that all might know belonging and home,
so that all might experience your love and promise of enough.
Bless this gathering, we pray,
so that our faith in the power of your love might be renewed in us;
so that we might be strengthen and sustained for your Advent journey.
As we watch and wait for the star and for the birth,
give Mary’s courage and Joseph’s imagination;
make us again people of hope, people of peace, people of joy, people of love.
Your people for the sake of all people.
With profound humility and thanks, we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
Emmanuel, God-with-us, Love-for-all.
Amen.
_________
As we continue our Advent journey together, we are making space for the complexity of this season. For those who are feeling grief, loss, loneliness, etc., we’ll offer our Longest Night service this Tuesday, Dec. 17 at 7:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary.
And for those who are feeling more celebratory, we’ll gather for our Christmas Joy Concert on Sunday, Dec. 22 at 4:00 p.m. also in the Sanctuary (and available to livestream on our Facebook page and our website). Some of you will want to participate in both, and that is one of the Advent and Christmas reminders we receive: God is with us through it all. What a gift!
Peace, friends.
Lindsey