[for 2-3 voices, alternating] On this eve of mystery and magic, let us enter into the Christmas story as if we were there on the holy night. What part will we play this year? Are you the mother, trusting your body to know what to do when the time of birth comes?...

The things to do have been done, well, for the most part. The people we need are in place, almost. We are ready, or as ready as we will be. Bless this most perfectly imperfect beginning. May we find the right people to do the right things as we go....

For the wonder and inspiration We seek from sun and stars And all the lights of the heavens We light this chalice.

This quote, from Peter Mayer's hymn "Blue Boat Home" (Singing the Journey #1064) was created for use & sharing on social media.

(adapted from the original) If, on a starlit night, with the moon brightly shimmering, We stay inside and do not venture out, the evening universe remains a part of life we shall not know....

It’s a pilgrimage, like a trek around Mount Kailash, or perhaps Bodh Gaya, but it’s life itself, the whole thing, every moment. On the high passes of Mount Kailash, pilgrims hope for a kind of death, a rebirth of spirit, and it’s not a bad thing to go there, do that, if time and money allow.

Like those shepherds who were on the hillsides with their flocks, like those wise ones in their observatories with their telescopes and astronomical charts, we find our daily work interrupted by these holidays. Like them, we can’t keep on working, we have to listen to singing angels, we have to...

Many of the past generation and many of today have found three abiding values in prayer: the quiet meditation on life, the reaching out toward the universal and the infinite, and the courageous facing of one's profoundest wishes....