December 23, 2022
Dear Saint Mark’s Community,
Our preschool’s Christmas Pageant returned to the Community Hall last Friday after a two-year pandemic break. I would not have missed the extravaganza for all the world, and stood on a bench against the south wall to take it all in. This year’s preschoolers played their roles and sang their carols with a mixture of terror and exuberance, as always. And a whole new crop of parents waved wildly as their children filed onto the stage. Some of the parents even stood on their chairs, unable to manage their crazy pride and intense affection for their little performers. It is my favorite part of the pageant each year; watching the parents watching their kids. My daughters, now 22 and 25,were in their fair share of pageants, and even when I didn’t leap up onto my seat to see them, I wanted to. What a gift it was to stand again this year in a room supercharged with love.
God delights in us too, just like those giddy parents. God jumps up on the chair to see. But even crazier: God charges right up onto the stage of our world where our comedies and tragedies and melodramas and farces unfold. That’s what Christians call the Incarnation: God’s love for humanity bursting into our lives in the person of Jesus, all to be up close, to join and transform the extravaganza.
Have a beautiful Christmas.
Faithfully,
The Reverend Carri Patterson Grindon+
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