Blue Christmas ~ A Sacred Space for the Burdened

Name: Blue Christmas ~ A Sacred Space for the Burdened
Start: 2024-12-15T16:00:00-05:00
End: 2024-12-15T17:30:00-05:00
Location: 1700 Fulton St E, Grand Rapids, MI, United States, Michigan 49506

Schedule

Sun Dec 15 2024 at 04:00 pm to 05:30 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

1700 Fulton St E, Grand Rapids, MI, United States, Michigan 49506 | Grand Rapids, MI

Details: https://www.grdominicans.org/program-retreat/blue-christmas/
The Christmas story reverberates with difficult realities–poverty, grief, danger, oppression, separation, and death–but we often don’t make room to acknowledge these. It is the same in our lives: we need to make room for the painful realities amidst and underlying the joys. We invite you to come and lay your burdens down in the sacred space of the Blue Christmas service where we find Jesus in our suffering and ourselves in Jesus.
We will be gathering contemplatively around a liturgy of Scripture and song, in Taizé style, that gathers our sorrows and lifts them to God. It is our hope that you will experience the welcome of your reality, however painful it is, in the presence of God, who suffered and suffers with us.
This is a Christmas service where your depression, grief, anger, and faintheartedness is welcomed. You may discover yourself with Jesus in the thrum of melancholy that surrounds Jesus’ birth. You, too, can come to the manger, poor as you feel.
Facilitators: Joanne Guarnieri-Hagemeyer & Kimberley Mulder