Sixteen years ago, just a few weeks before my second Christmas as my husband's wife, I listened to TL Osborn on a Christian talk-show. He's a Pentecostal who looks both adorable and sinister all at the same time -- a fiery preacher of short stature with red hair, moustache and beard. He reminds me of the type of preaching I remember from my youth -- the type of preaching that is not so frequently heard anymore. I always found him to be adorable and felt a deep sense of love for him -- watching him on the little box in my living room.
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That afternoon, he gave a short and simple message, explaining how the Annunciation can apply to every believer -- perhaps the most profound Christmas message that I have yet to hear. He explained, ever so simply, that like the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, the Holy Spirit comes upon us, the Power of the Highest overshadows us and puts the Word of the Lord into our hearts. Through the Holy Seed of the Word of God that He grafts into our hearts, that which is born of our intimacy with Him brings forth Christ in our lives. All we need to say is "Be it unto me according to Your Word, Oh Lord." I knelt down on the living room floor and wept.
A number of years ago, after a great loss and barrenness amidst a hard season of pain and suffering, my husband gave me a book of advent meditations for Christmas. I wept when I read this different telling of this same message I recalled from years before. I continue to cry out to the Lord: "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it unto me according to Thy Word." I "didn't get the life that I ordered, " but I offer my life to my Savior to be a sanctuary for Him. I found this meditation to be of great comfort. I still do.
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Excerpts from "To Be Virgin"
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a meditation for December 6
"To be virgin means to be one, whole in oneself, not perforated by the concerns of the conventional norms and authority, or the powers and principalities. To be virgin, then, is in a sense to be recollected. Though recollection appears to be passive, it is worth noting that conceive is an active verb. Its Latin root means "to seize, to take hold of." Because Mary is recollected, she is able to take hold of God..."
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"With the quiet of recollection may come the stark edge of fear that this doing nothing, this being, this offering of oneself for God to be the actor, cannot possibly be enough. It all seems so passive. Do something, produce, perform, earn your keep. Don't just sit there. It may be good and well for Mary to offer space in herself for God to dwell and be born into the world, but few of us possess the radical belief that such recollection requires. What matters in the deeper experience of contemplation is not the doing and accomplishing. What matters is relationship, the being with..."
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"We create holy ground and give birth to Christ in our time not by doing, but by believing and by loving the mysterious Infinite One who stirs within. This requires trust that something of great and saving importance is growing and kicking its heels in you. Jesus observed, "Without me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) Yet we act, for the most part, as though without us God can do nothing..."
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"We think we have to make Christmas come, which is to say we think we have to bring about the redemption of the universe on our own. When all God needs is a willing womb,…nourishment and love. "Oh, but nothing will get done," you say, "If I don't do it, Christmas won't happen." And we crowd out Christ with our fretful fears. God asks us to give away everything of ourselves. The gift of greatest efficacy and power that we can offer God and creation is not our skills, gifts, abilities and possessions. The wise men had their gold, frankincense and myrrh…Mary offered only space, love, belief..."
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"What is it that delivers Christ into the world - preaching, art, writing scholarship, social justice? Those are all gifts worth sharing…"
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"In the end, when all other human gifts have met their inevitable limitation, it is the recollected one, the bold virgin with a heart in love with God who makes a sanctuary of her life, who delivers Christ who then delivers us..."
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"Be a sancuary... Be surprised."
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Loretta Ross-Gotta
p. 96-99
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