Love came down at Christmas

Our 2010 tree
We have decorated for Christmas early this year. It is a break with strict tradition that says "Don't put up the tree until Christmas Eve. Celebrate Advent properly. Advent is a more solemn season." This I know, and I do want to take Advent seriously and not let it get swallowed by Christmas. It may be that we have simply given in to cultural pressures. In our culture, Christmas ends on Christmas Day and the twelve days of Christmas have been lost to the pre-Christmas commercial binge. Advent means shopping not solemn reflection. Yet, I hope our early beginnings of celebration is more than that. If the Christmas season has been taken from us after Christmas Day, then we might as well enjoy Christmas before. I have made suitable adjustments to my iTunes play list! (Five hundred and four tracks and counting. Check out Bob Dylan's "Christmas in the Heart," Delightful!)
The last couple of days I have had in mind the words of Christina Rossetti's poem "Love came down at Christmas." She sees the meaning of Christmas as love, and the effect of Christmas to love God and all people. This for me, too, is the meaning of Christmas. Christmas is the sign and symbol of universal love. Love as practice. Love as hope. Love as aspiration. Love as longing.
Love is in the universal experience of nurture and care. None of us would be here without it. Love is in the universal ethical aspiration of all the world's great traditions and religions—Confucian benevolence, Buddhist lovingkindness, Jewish and Christian love, Muslim compassion, Kant's categorical imperative, feminist care ... the list goes on.  As it says in the Tao Te Ching, "Thirty spokes share one hub"  (XI, 27) Love is how we would like to see the world.
In our ongoing discussions as a community we have been pondering love. This is our understanding:
Love is to be at the heart of the Lindisfarne Community. “Love your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies.” The immensity of the task makes it naturally impossible! Yet we are called to be a community of love. We need to remember, it is God’s love, not ours; perfect, eternal, constant. With God’s love there are no strings attached, no conditions to be met, no favoritism. Yet it is not sentimental nor romantic, for love is not merely a feeling, it is an act of will; the “naked intent” of the heart to love God, neighbor and enemy. There is the deepest of all joy in the love of God. We seek to learn to love, to walk in love, to exult in love, to make love our highest aim, to let God’s love fill us completely. Our desire is to be free within the love of our heavenly Father-Mother — to know God’s passionate love for us and to live our lives from within God’s acceptance of us. This love of God is reflected in our love for all, even those who are considered our enemies. It is a reconciling love; a love that seeks peace. It is a love for the whole of creation.
Our written understanding is only the beginning, imperfectly expressed, but giving us a direction. To name love is not to know love. To know love is to experience love. The gateway to experience is the door of practice. The door of practice is found in the mundane. Love came down at Christmas. Love was found in a stable, in the profundity of birth and parental love, in everyday life.
+Ab. Andy