do nothing friday 5

do nothing friday 5 on the revgals

Sally had an interesting idea:

I am reading a wonderful little book for Advent it's title: "Do nothing Christmas is Coming!"

So this weeks Friday Five is simple.

List Five things you won't be doing to prepare for Christmas.

And while you are doing nothing play the bonus, put your feet up and listen to your favourite Advent Carol, and post it or a link to it...

Simple!

1. I won't be anticipating snow or expecting to shovel snow

but I will be full of gratitude for gifts of coastal desert and the hot desert

2. I won't be preparing to preach a Christmas sermon or play nativity liturgy

but I will be doing some designing

3. I won't be basking in the sun of a tropical beach paradise

but I will be giving thanks for sufficient food and shelter

4. I won't be enjoying that sense of "finally, at last, I'm home" I keep imagining is around the next corner I turn, the next community where I try to find ways to participate

but I will be doing and simply being whatever and however I can to fulfill God's call to me to be the welcoming embrace others seek and others need, daily and hourly to live as an attitude and a place of homecoming for others

5. I won't be celebrating the resurgence and revitalization of the ministry I prepared to do

but I will be remembering not a single door has been permanently closed and singing again the Magnificat, God's assurance of great reversals, the rich and irrevocable promise—along with proleptic evidence—of the inbreaking reign of heaven here on earth. I'll even rejoice in my too-many scars, evidence that in spite of it all, life has prevailed, after all! And during Advent and for Thanksgiving Eve I've been organist for evening prayer and love exposing the strident, sometimes-dissonant harmonies and angular vocal line of the Lutheran Book of Worship setting of vespers.

I've chosen a song that covers the entire liturgical year:

Mary, Did You Know?

by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has come to make you new?
This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?

Mary did you know...

The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
The sleeping Child you're holding is the Great I Am.