Christine A. O'Riley

Sometimes you need help to rise above the ugliness that can surround. You need something bigger than you to come pull you into a sacred space, a safe place where you can rest a while and have courage put back into you. Sometimes, writing comes…

Writing comes to capture a feeling, a nuance

of a time and place my soul wishes to preserve.

It is as if the pen harvests an encounter

and sows it into my deep places

to draw on, to smell, taste

and linger in the moment for all time.

Writing comes, a lifelong friend

to help me preserve what is

most real and wondrous about life.

Writing comes.

Christine O’Riley

For years I have loved the greeting “Merry Christmas” given at this time of year. As a child growing up in Northern N.Y., it was a warm, welcoming phrase familiar to me, expressed in the public square amidst the holiday bustle. It was a salutation of safe tradition and jolly gathering for the religious and non-religious alike. It had that “something extra” about it. What I have learned about the word “merry” over the past few years however, has changed my understanding of this greeting and actually empowered it for me in a transforming way. Let me share with you…

My encounter with “merry” began as I researched the background of the song “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” I had always thought of it as a happy song, expressing positivity but with an urging toward relaxation that involved human effort. When the opportunity to sing it in a local program occurred, I thought it would be fascinating to explore its history.

My sources were the Oxford English Dictionary, Deeproots mag.org. and Wikepdia. This traditional English carol is considered the oldest in existence, dating back to the 16th century. No one really knows who wrote it. At that time, the religious establishment frowned upon any joyful music within the four walls of the church building, so this Christmas song was written in a minor key, thought of traditionally to be darker and more pensive.

In that day “rest” meant “to keep, cause to continue, to remain.” In the vernacular of the 1500s, “merry” translated more accurately “mighty, “strong” like Robin Hood’s merry (mighty) men. The comma in the title of the carol was originally and correctly placed after “merry,” and so the heading of this piece would be correctly spoken, “God rest ye merry, gentlemen,” or more accurately and true to meaning, “God keep and cause you to remain mighty, gentlemen.”

How curious to be made and kept mighty! Perhaps the reminder of the first verse lends some meaning to this phrase:

“God keep you mighty, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day, to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray. Oh tidings of comfort and joy! Comfort and joy ! Oh tidings of comfort and joy!”

In the midst of a dark time in history, you could look your neighbor in the eye and bring kind power and encouragement (putting courage back into)to them by speaking “Mighty Christmas.”

So consider the unknown author of these words had a revelatory experience that because of Jesus Christ being born and completing his earthly assignment, we here on earth can be made and kept mighty and strong in God’s keeping power against our enemy of evil.

That right there is good news and apparently way too strong and mighty to be contained within the four walls of religious oppression. So, when the singers of this oldest of all carols were cast outside of those four walls, their exuberant joy was released in the village square as they sang and changed the atmosphere of their time. Christmas caroling was born. I think that’s what God always had in mind the entire time.

So, in midst of these times, even though I may not be physically with you in this moment, I want to look you in the eyes of your soul through this writing in the village square and sincerely say… Mighty Christmas, dear one.

Thanks for reading.

I had battled to get home from the hospital that late evening. The weather was as the 3 to 11 shift had been…unpredictable, furiously windy with wild rain beating down. My car seemed to find its own way down the darker than usual wet midnight streets where shadows shifted in and out of my persevering path.

Exhausted as I was, a strange restlessness greeted me as I found my bed. Hours passed but sleep did not come. As I listened to the wind howl and shake, a specific sense of something needing to be done became increasingly apparent. I had learned from similar times in the past that this could mean someone or something needed help for protection or to see a different outcome. It was a type of summons from Heaven to join in specific prayer for an urgent need.

Numb, my tired body made its way downstairs, seeming to be led, as I looked out into the night where the trees swayed and bent, buffeted in the storm that came in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. I lifted up the names of my children, their spouses, my grandchildren, siblings and family. There was a peace about them all. That was not it. I waited.

Suddenly I heard a single word in my spirit. “Queens.” And then an instruction: “Stretch out your hand towards Queens.” The only place I knew with that name was in New York City, many miles away, East of Rochester, where I lived. I happened to be facing East and so I stretched out my hand in that direction. What happened next came through me but not from me.

“There will be no loss of life tonight in Queens, N.Y. I declare life and protection with no loss of life.” I heard the words come through me with matter of fact authority, like a decree. Suddenly there was a release with an acute awareness that work had been accomplished and all was well.

The restlessness lifted. Intense drowsiness now came as I returned to bed and immediate sleep overcame me.

The next morning I was puttering around my kitchen when the volume of the TV in the living room suddenly increased. Wondering what happened, I wandered in to take a look just in time to see a newsreel moving along the bottom of the TV screen from right to left.

“Massive five alarm fire sweeps through twelve apartments in building in Queens, N.Y. Cause undetermined. No loss of life.” The message repeated as I stood there in surreal amazement, unable to move.

Tears flowed as my grateful heart encountered the intense, overwhelming supernatural goodness of the One who had summoned me from my bed to join in the work of Heaven that night. A path had been paved on the earth for intervention. I believe angelic assignments were dispatched. The natural course of an event with an impending disaster was interrupted and changed to see, miraculously, on that dark hurricane night, no loss of life.

Sometimes, when making decisions and allowing our plans to be shaken and tested, it is empowering to let it all go. Seemingly terrifying at first, it may be the path to wisdom.

“Have another thought” are the words so freeing to my soul. The mind in me spreads its wings and takes flight, looking down onto what only moments ago I was surrounded by, linked to.

I let go of what I had latched-on to and give myself permission to have another thought, another perspective, another choice, a different decision, an alternative plan, a wider view, maybe even a better way.

Re-pent is to re-consider, re-member, re-muse on, be re-pensive about, have another thought about, a different thought.

My will is free, my heart can soar, truth can be known and I can choose something new…the better part.

“Have another thought” are the words so freeing to my soul.