Mon Jan. 2 Be Made New (Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues)

So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of a new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!

-2 Corinthians 5:17

        As we enter the last week of the Advent Music Project and the first week of 2012, AMP is thinking about how all things are being made new. The glow of the manger still warms us and we linger for one more week in the path of Magi, in the stories that will ask us what we have to offer the newborn king. I must confess the metaphor only goes so far for me, as I have trouble conceiving what might be equivalent to frankincense in my spiritual life, but I don't think that is the point anyway. Rather, we encounter the baby of that manger, the embodiment of God's Love, as we are; and in that encounter we are invited to be changed, myrrh or not...

Amazing Grace

       For my money, there is no better song to speak of being changed by Love than Amazing Grace. This week we will explore the theme of all things being made new, but I do believe that the work of making creation new starts in the hearts of women and men as we are made new by grace. So I quite like the verse that Cat Power sings, (though it is a little off script from the old standard), that says "Good people been here more than 10,000 years, every one bright as the shining sun, we've got no less days to sing God's praise from the time that we've begun, it will be grace that will bring us safe and home." There is something in those lines that evokes a sense God's renewing goodness: people shining across the ages, people called good, by the Source of Grace who is journeying us home.  Whether it is the moment we first begin, or it seems thousands of years since we have begun our faith journey, there is something about Grace that invites us to be made new at each encounter. After all, as the poet Denise Levertov says, "But we have only begun to love the earth. We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life. How could we tire of hope?- so much is in bud. How can desire fail? - we have only begun to imagine justice and mercy, only begun to envision," (Beginners).

... So what does it mean for you to come as you are to the manger? How might the baby in the manger invite you to be changed? What do you want to be made new in you?

God With Us, draw us into your grace, into the promise that you are making this world new; draw us in the wild hope that we, too, may be made new.

-Lindsey