December 24

     When I was out on the pueblo I was surprised that the rituals didn't have much of an effect on me. It was wonderful to see and to learn, but there was no response on an emotional level. I sat next to a small child at dinner, waiting for the Kachinas to arrive. Suddenly alert he turned to me and said "Did you hear bells? I think the Kachinas draw near..." The Kachinas are a trinity. They are the mountain spirits who live on the sacred mountain. They love, protect and guide the people. They are also the dancers, who don masks and prepare themselves spiritually to be a host for the mountain spirits. It is not dance as we know it, it is movement and the generation of energy. It is prayer in motion. The third aspect of kachina are the dolls. One man explained "You have the Jesus Kachina in your churches..." A sacred symbol that teaches and reminds us of a sacred story.
     This year, when I saw the priest at our local Orthodox Church address the children as Saint Nicholas, I thought, "he is the Saint Nicholas kachina". A grandfather himself, he spoke with them so tenderly that he truly did allow them to encounter the spirit of the great saint. A few weeks later I attended the Christmas pageant at a local church. It was a very beautiful celebration. Mary was played by a young mother who had given birth only six weeks before. As she sat on the altar, beaming down on her new born son, we were all witness to the great love a mother feels for her child. The lights were dimmed and the congregation sang Silent Night. My eyes filled with tears at the beauty of this simple scene and I remembered the depth of love I had experienced when my own child was born—that love so unfathomably deep that we are transformed in a moment. That love that burns so bright and with such ferocity that we would willingly surrender our own life so our child would not be harmed. This story and pageant were so simple, yet more powerful than the greatest homilies I've ever heard. This is what we celebrate at Christmas—the mystery of that love, embodied in a new born child. One of the things parents say is that they are surprised not only by the depth of love they feel for their child, but by the depth of love that young children feel for us.
     I believe in that love. I believe in a force so mysterious that a universe came forth from it and that this force is love.
     And I believe in the great healing stories of my people, the stories we tell year after year. The stories we hear for the first time before we are old enough to remember them in words. We remember them in the same way. They evoke emotions which we cannot put words too, but which are strong and important. No matter how much I learned about the people of the pueblos, I would never have the advantage of the child who, in complete belief, whispers to a stranger "do you hear bells? I think the kachinas draw near..." The mountain spirits are in his heart, they are rooted in his soul. But Saint Nicholas is rooted in mine. I thank and bless the people who allowed themselves to be vessels this season so the spirit of Christmas could come through them. The kindly priest, the young mother and her beautiful baby, the deer dancers in my woods—they were all vessels for spirit. They were all kachinas.
      Merry Christmas. Amen.