{"id":29892,"date":"2011-12-16T16:59:03","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T16:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/archbishop_rowan_williams-challenge_and_grace_in_the_midst_of_a_messy_chri\/"},"modified":"2011-12-16T16:59:03","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T16:59:03","slug":"archbishop_rowan_williams-challenge_and_grace_in_the_midst_of_a_messy_chri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=29892","title":{"rendered":"Archbishop Rowan Williams&#8211;Challenge and Grace in the Midst of a &#34;Messy&#34; Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;Every year, mysteriously, all our plans seem to evaporate and it&#8217;s the usual mess, with all the last minute panic. There&#8217;ll be a good few people concerned just now about what they can afford for a start.<\/p>\n<p>Yet it&#8217;s odd in a way, this business of Perfect Christmasses. The story of the first Christmas is the story of a series of completely unplanned, messy events \u201d\u201c a surprise pregnancy, an unexpected journey that&#8217;s got to be made, a complete muddle over the hotel accommodation when you get there&#8230;Not exactly a perfect holiday&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>But in the complete mess of the first Christmas, God says, &#8216;Don&#8217;t worry \u201d\u201c I&#8217;m not going to wait until you&#8217;ve got everything sorted out perfectly before I get involved with you&#8230;.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archbishopofcanterbury.org\/articles.php\/2283\/archbishops-pause-for-thought-message\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;Every year, mysteriously, all our plans seem to evaporate and it&#8217;s the usual mess, with all the last minute panic. There&#8217;ll be a good few people concerned just now about what they can afford for a start. Yet it&#8217;s odd<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=29892\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,48,574,67,575,187,177,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican-episcopal","category-christian-life-church-life","category-advent","category-archbishop-of-canterbury","category-christmas","category-church-year-liturgical-seasons","category-pastoral-theology","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}