'Quakers have mixed attitudes to Christmas...' Photo: Lum3n.com via pexels.com.
Christmas: a learning experience
Bernard Coote ruminates on seasonal messages
Quakers have mixed attitudes to Christmas. Quite strong feelings can be expressed as to the place it should have in Quaker observance. They are in good company.
For the first 300 years of Christianity, there is no recorded account of Christmas being a special time of celebration. Two of the four gospels do not even mention the story of the birth of Jesus.
In northern Europe, later missionaries from Rome made use of Christmas in order to replace the traditional wild pagan celebrations held at the Winter Solstice.
The original story is one of surprise and shock, usually unrecognised because of the familiarity. It features an improvised birthplace in an unknown place. A stable. How much lower can you get? Imagine the conditions!
Human birth is an experience of shock. We all arrive, helpless, into a world of noise and light, gasping for breath. We are quickly wrapped up for protection. It is beyond our recall now, but it has left its mark.
How did we come to learn that we were welcome here, expected, wanted?
Hands touched and held us in ways that gave a sense of security and trust. Feeding provided comfort, a sense of belonging, being at the heart of things. Welcome was discovering who we are, our place –learning to understand and be understood.
Life is the experience of discovering meaning, whether or not this is a welcoming world and universe.
Christmas has a note of welcome. The story tells of callers to as lowly a place as a stable. Welcome is a threshold, an invitation to become part of the ongoing story.
In my tenth decade of Christmases as a long-retired Anglican priest, remembering countless readings of the story, I can reflect again on this story in a Meeting house, which was once a farm house, with a stable.
