“Letting Christ be Born in the Waiting Heart”

Dear Reader:

I came across a written Christmas remembrance by author, Sue Kidd Monk, who was reminiscing about her relationship with Christmas nativity mangers, as a child and then later…. from a different perspective as an adult. (http://www.sermons.com)

Sue Monk Kidd, in one of her books, recalls her youth and how she would prepare for Christmas. In early December, she would sit by the wooden nativity set clustered under their Christmas tree and think over the last year of her life. She would think deeply about Christmas and the coming of Jesus.

She remembers, one time, visiting a monastery. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas. As she passed a monk walking outside, she greeted him with, “Merry Christmas.” The monk’s response caught her off guard a bit. “May Christ be born in you,” he replied.

His words seemed strange and peculiar at the time. What did he mean, “May Christ be born in you?”

At the time she was unsure of the response, but now all these years later, sitting beside the Christmas tree, she felt the impact of his words. She has since discovered that Advent is a time of spiritual preparation. It is also a time of transformation. It is “discovering our soul and letting Christ be born from the waiting heart.”

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The more I thought about the monk’s response the more, I too, realized he ‘nailed’ the meaning of Advent precisely.

Once we pull ourselves away from the secular…and concentrate on the real meaning of Advent as a time of spiritual preparation and transformation everything else just seems to fall into place.

My epiphany…The manger is in the shape of a heart…everyone’s heart who will give the Christ-Child “room in the inn.”

So until tomorrow…Don’t count the days until Christmas…count each moment the Christ-child enters your thoughts…the more it happens..the more joyful the Christmas!

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

*We have been talking about snow balls…Honey sent this picture from Pinnacle mountain (see yesterday’s blog at all the snow they got) and Mike and Honey laughingly said they now have snow “cone heads.”

Oh…I can hardly wait for my Christmas card! Too cute!

About Becky Dingle

I was born a Tarheel but ended up a Sandlapper. My grandparents were cotton farmers in Laurens, South Carolina and it was in my grandmother’s house that my love of storytelling began beside an old Franklin stove. When I graduated from Laurens High School, I attended Erskine College (Due West of what?) and would later get my Masters Degree in Education/Social Studies from Charleston Southern. I am presently an adjunct professor/clinical supervisor at CSU and have also taught at the College of Charleston. For 28 years I taught Social Studies through storytelling. My philosophy matched Rudyard Kipling’s quote: “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” Today I still spread this message through workshops and presentations throughout the state. The secret of success in teaching social studies is always in the story. I want to keep learning and being surprised by life…it is the greatest teacher. Like Kermit said, “When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.”

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