by abby mohaupt

In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. 2 This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. 3 Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. 4 Since Joseph belonged to David’s house and family line, he went up from the city of Nazareth in Galilee to David’s city, called Bethlehem, in Judea. 5 He went to be enrolled together with Mary, who was promised to him in marriage and who was pregnant. 6 While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby. 7 She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.
Luke 2:1-20 (CEB)



I wish I was home for Christmas. Home means eating cinnamon rolls made by my mom, playing with my nieces and nephews, meeting up with friends we haven’t seen all year… Home means getting to have cheese fries at my favorite restaurant and hugging my partner’s 80 year old grandmother who I love like my own.
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But earlier this month, my partner and I travelled to the Mexico-Texas border to meet and support (in our own small way) asylees who have left their homes to come north. We went with the PCUSA Wall of Welcome, joining students from Austin Seminary and leaders of the PCUSA. We went to listen and to learn. We went because we felt it necessary to leave our homes in order to welcome those who had journeyed so far in order to be welcomed.

I’ve been thinking about that journey in the context of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem--how they sought welcome and ended up in a stable. How from the stable, Mary and Joseph--and now Jesus--had to flee because if they stayed their son would be killed. How their flight meant that other babies were killed… and that at the end of the day it was Herod who bore the guilt. In the same way, our governments today enforce systems of all kinds that mean children--and other living things--die.

We went to the border to meet real human beings who had fled their homes in search o life.

But going to the border (and another family trip in the spring) meant that we used up our resources to go home for Christmas. I don’t just mean our financial resources, though we don’t have limitless money. I mean also that we used up our carbon emissions budget for the rest of the year.

Everything we do has a carbon footprint. In our household we’ve tried to make ours smaller by investing in the solar power option from our utility company, having one of our cars be hybrid (and driving our cars as little as possible), eating an all vegetarian diet (though my partner sometimes eats meat outside of our home), buying only what we need, investing our time and money into advocating for divestment from fossil fuels, and putting on a sweater when we’re cold instead of turning on the heat.

But every time we fly, we make that footprint larger. I fly often for work and I have had to face the guilt of the fact that every time I buy a plane ticket, I’m contributing to climate change. And climate change is literally killing other human beings right now. I don’t know how to stop flying for work--not yet--and it is the question I’m bringing into the New Year.

But knowing that--we need to make our own sacrifices.

So on Christmas Eve, I’ll make a phone call home. I’ll laugh with my grandmother and listen to my niece sing to me over the phone. I’ll pick up cinnamon rolls made by my favorite local baker and snuggle up with my cats.

And as the night grows deeper, I’ll give thanks for the Little One who is coming into this world to love us and teach us and help us make home wherever we go.

by Audrey White

​I remember the first time I ever loved a place. I was flat on my back on a tennis court at Mo Ranch for vespers during Senior High Youth Celebration in a circle of new best friends, and we were singing beneath as many stars as I’ve ever seen all at once. I had been to Mo a few times before, but that night I understood what people mean when they talk about having more than one Home.

The Texas Hill Country is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and Mo Ranch is right in the heart of it on the Guadalupe river. It is verdant and rocky and vast, with a chapel and a labyrinth and a defunct roller skating rink where we did energizers and heard amazing ministers talk about God in new ways. It is on lands that once belonged to Lipan Apache and Comanche people. I didn’t know that back then, but it is important to know it now and to pray and fight for displaced peoples of all nations. The place we now call Mo Ranch is carefully preserved and set apart, which is why it’s possible for a tennis court full of high schoolers to see all those stars.
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That night, I committed my heart to that patch of land, and I have been back many times since. As we wait expectantly for the birth of Jesus this Advent, I think about forgotten lands. I think about corners of the earth that no one with power or money has committed to loving deeply. What would it be like if I could transform the love I have for Mo into an abiding devotion to every inch of this good, created Earth? How can we open our hearts to to caring for the whole planet the way we love our Homes?

I don’t have an answer to those questions, not today at least. But I know we don’t have much time left to ask them. As we wait for Christmas and wonder at the love our creating God has for us, let us also wonder how we can show that love to the soil and water and air that keeps us alive.

by Liv Thomas

Maybe not a conventional opener for a reflection on joy in nature, but I’m not sure one can actually experience joy in nature.

At least, not outright. I’ve come to believe that nature uncovers joy in innumerable ways but can’t deliver us joy like a small wrapped gift floating on a lily pad that we happen to stumble upon. Is this making any sense?  I’ll try my best to explain.

As I’ve been considering the idea of Joy in Nature, I’ve been led to consider the nature of joy. I agree with most folks, there’s something radically different about joy and happiness. I think that while happiness is an internal emotional response to external stimuli and sort of comes and goes as we move from one set of circumstances to another, joy is an experience that principally begins within. Put another way, I think happiness moves from large-scale to small-scale. We each experience and process information outside of our bodies (that incredible chocolate cake from yesterday, the thoughtful text from your far-away friend, the hilariously misspelled headline), and sometimes these things reduce to a feeling of happiness within.

When it comes to joy, our awareness of it moves from small-scale to large-scale, its inception springing forth from within and then moving us toward a sense of those things larger than us.

Most simply put, joy is the experience of our central fulfillment.
Joy is present when we feel our complete wholeness, when we experience our undeniable interconnectedness to one another, and when we are delivered to wonder at what is before us and the possibility of what may come next.

And, in this way, the unexpected, almost always temporal, and frequently unimaginable way, our natural world reveals joy and thus makes us aware of God within each other.

A few weeks ago, I took part in an unlikely kickball game that uncovered joy for me.
This kickball game took place on one of the last bright and sunny Saturday afternoons of the fall in a public park located in a city neighborhood hurting from the effects of redlining and poverty. It was just cold enough to need a jacket during the team dividing but warm enough to shed a layer after running the bases a couple of times. The athlete roster was a holy mix: adult staff from a nearby non-profit, neighborhood kids, youth from a church hundreds of miles away, and middle-aged and older members of a nearby suburban church. And while some of us were on the kickball field, another group of new friends was sitting at the park’s tables doing some coloring and getting to know each other.

As I ran and played and enjoyed the warm sun and still crisp air, I was equally struck by the beauty of the day and how unexpected and ephemeral  this moment was. Innings would end, winter would soon arrive, the leaves would fall, this temporary community would disperse, and we’d each return to our home. This moment revealed for me such a sense of joy. I deeply understood my connection with these people I’d just met. Now, weeks later, I remain convinced that heaven looks something like an unlikely kickball game on a beautifully sunny day. Surely, the presence of our Creator was in that place.

​Creator God,
As we notice joy arise within us during this advent season, may we especially take time to notice and mark the ways that your creation holds, clarifies, and guides us to an awareness in which joy is uncovered. Accompany us as joy is revealed through these unexpected, perhaps temporal, sometimes unbelievable glimpses of you, The One whom we turn to and remember when a great joy is felt.  Renew in us the curiosity to notice joy. Amen.

by Emily Brewer, Executive Director of Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

I have to admit, this year in the Advent I’ve been hearing John the Baptist in a way I haven’t before. What I notice about John this year is how harsh his words are, how much his tone clashes with the quiet, candle-lit waiting I usually experience as Advent. His words match the dissonance between the way I want Advent to feel and the way I actually feel this year.
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This year, as I light the candles on my wreath, I think about the fires that killed and displaced so many in California, and about the fires that will continue to get worse in our country as climate change becomes more and more evident in our day-to-day lives. As I think about the birth of the Christ-child, I think about how different the lives of children born today will be from my life so far: will they survive the fires and floods and droughts to live long and full and healthy lives? I think about the many children’s lives are already devastated by climate change--by harsh weather and armed conflict that happens as resources become more scarce.

You probably read or saw the news about the Fourth National Climate Assessment that came out just before the start of Advent. In light of that, John’s rantings seem apt this Advent. “You brood of vipers!”* he shouts. It may as well have been written on November 24, 2018, the day after the Climate Assessment was released. It may as well be a message to those of us who have disproportionately caused climate change and whose governments continue to only make weak efforts to combat it, if any at all.

Yet, John does not leave it at calling us vipers. He tells us that we cannot escape what is to come. But we should prepare ourselves by sharing resources like food and clothes. We should not take more than our share. This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.

I am not saying that the already-here-and-yet-impending climate crisis is the same as God coming to dwell among us in the form of a baby. But maybe there are some similarities. John warns us that God coming among us will not be gentle or easy. God coming among us changes the world forever, and we are called to be ready by trying to live out the Kingdom here, by sharing resources on an interpersonal and global scale, because we cannot even imagine what is coming, but we know it will change us. We are called to find hope in the midst of it all, not because it makes us feel better, but because it is the hope of new life that will keep us going in this time, that will help us imagine what is possible when the time comes.

*These scriptural references are paraphrased from Luke 3 and the lectionary readings for the second and third weeks of Advent.