"Oh holy night, the stars ..

Lines from Christmas songs tend to get stuck in my head and loop around over and over.  Yesterday it was 'oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining, it is the night when ...', over and over it went as a couplet playing in the background of my day. The interesting thing about having just a few words of music playing in my mind is that after a while I find they have squiggled deeper and pushed up other thoughts and so a favorite quote from Matthew Fox appeared, "holiness is cosmic hospitality.'


Holiness is hospitality; welcoming and greeting.  According to the words of the song then, on that night, something was welcomed and greeted and became holy.  Right now, a flame is shimmering within the little nativity setting on my armoir: an angel, Mary, Joseph and a crib.  It's easy to understand the angel as holy and what will fill the crib we know to be holy and because of the story we tell, we also call Mary and Joseph and all the other members of the Christmas story: Elizabeth, shepherds, inn keepers and kings holy.  And yet, sitting here in my living room I am aware that Mary, Joseph and Elizabeth; the shepherds and even the kings were, within the living of their lives, ordinary people.  Ordinary folk like you and I going about living and yet we call them holy.  Why?  And, more importantly, why do we not call ourselves holy?

I believe we call them holy because we know their story as completed and because it is 'complete', that is seen in it's totality, it appears tidy and perfect as though somehow they did everything 'right.'  Our own story on the other hand, is not yet complete and, if yours is anything like mine, it is full of contradictions, imperfections, confusions and mistakes and is therefore, far from tidy.

I think we tend to define 'holiness' as tidy perfection.  But I suspect that in the reality of their living, Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and everyone else were probably pretty human and ordinary and therefore they, like us, were prone to mistakes and confusions like all 'real' people.  I sincerely doubt they perceived their lives as 'perfect' while they were living their lives. It's just a hunch of mine but I suspect that since they also were human like you and I, they also made mistakes living their lives.  I would suppose that being human, their developmental process was like the rest of we humans which is to say that as part of  learning, they messed up, tried again and eventually experienced some insight and wisdom and then repeated the cycle of learning with mistakes and successes just like people do.  What I also suspect is that the element of their story that is holiness, is exactly what Matthew Fox referred to: their hospitality to living - to all the parts of their living.

I would guess that one reason we tell their story is they were also hospitable to their mistakes - hospitable to their weaknesses - hospitable to where they failed.  Don't misunderstand me, I also suspect that like the rest of us they did not necessarily enjoy failing or feeling weak, but they were most likely not perfectionists and therefore had no need to blame other people or deny their own humanness.  I say this because clearly from the story we tell, each of these people had a very high degree of receptivity - of hospitality - to Life and we cannot be receptive like that unless we are open to the wholeness of our story.  Wholeness: the totality of living.  Wholeness is holiness.  And holiness and wholeness within the lives of real people contains weakness and confusion, failures and mistakes as well as the moments of joy found in holy nights and mornings.

"Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining, it is the night when ..."  That was the night when Life became holy because Life was welcomed and greeted.  We make life holy by our willingness to be receptive - open and welcoming - to what Life offers us.  We are holy for we carry God within ourselves and when we know this and we therefore welcome and greet the God within ourselves and within each other - despite the quite imperfect human form - we create holiness.

Thinking on all of this I know that in my life the people I admire the most and enjoy being with are the ones who own the 'wholeness' of their living: the doubts and knowings, fears and weaknesses, adventures with wrong turns, backtracking and discovery; joys and delights, dreams and the stumbling journeys to fulfilling dreams.  These are the people I am able to learn from.  These are the people who I am willing to be open with and share my real self with.  These are people I know to be holy.

This isn't just my idea, Rabbi Abraham Heschel put this idea in far fewer words: "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy."  May you be blessed with the blessings found in hospitality to the holiness of your life.