“There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.” (Madeleine L’Engle)
~
So now it’s less than two weeks before we celebrate the Birth, and I suppose I need this quote written down somewhere because I’ve gone and started my Christmas shopping, and if there’s anything more secular, well I’m not sure I know what it is.
I have no idea how shopping for Christmas presents can be sacred, but I trust that all this earth is hallowed ground and the Divine is everywhere and anywhere, and despite my inability to see Him I can trust Him.
And I wonder if simply this – trusting that He is, and that He is here – could be the way to see the sacred in the secular?
Whether I’m shopping for gifts or measuring out flour, wrapping a box or wrapping up my to-do list, it’s Who I’m doing it for that matters, that makes the difference.
“It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular; it is why he does it.” (A.W. Tozer)Am I buying gifts out of a sense of obligation, or a sense of joy in the coming Incarnation of Christ?
Am I stringing lights simply because it’s what I’ve always done this time of year, or because this simple thing reminds me of the One who took on skin and bone and sinew and inhaled this earthly air so that I might one day inhale the divine holiness of His presence?
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:14)
Among us. Around the dinner table and in the shopping mall and right there in the woods where we’re cutting our very own Christmas tree to dress in tinsel.
Among us, and for us, and with us everywhere – not just in pew or pulpit but in this very place, this very day.
Holiness dwelling among us.
Sacred right here in the middle of the shopping and the dailiness and the reality of life.
Right here in the secular.
~xo,
LuAnne
