Medieval Lexicon of Symbology

 The primary question is, why is Christmas so meaningful to all audiences.  Why does it persist; what makes it the most pervasive, most persistent of all the Christian traditions? The answer is that it is a perfect representation of an encounter with the divine.  It is transcendent, and it allows humanity to experience feelings of connection with the spiritual, with the holy.  It incorporates stories of the miraculous, of the heroic, of the joyful, as well as the bitter, and with foreshadowing of destruction. Wherever you look in the extended Nativity narrative, you find stories of man's encounter with God.  In the story of Elizabeth is capture feelings of frustration and humiliation suddenly turned to honor and fulfillment, as her barrenness, which she said brought her shame, is now replaced with the success of giving birth.  Mary's reflection can be seen as an opposite, where her joy at her coming marriage is temporarily clouded because she gets pregnant ...

 There are four main reasons why people attend church: 1. People crave a spiritual component to their lives.  Generally, people derive a measure of satisfaction from participating in a meaningful religious experience in their everyday lives.  Attending a church service can provide that connection with the divine, the holy, the ascendant, something larger than themselves. What can happen, however, is that some new element is introduced that makes it difficult to achieve that same sense of spiritual connection.  For example, if your idea of a worship experience is with traditional hymns played on the organ, and your church introduces a rock band, you may have a difficult time achieving that same sense of serenity and participation.  If you have a particular connection to praise and worship choruses with simple lyrics, and you are confronted with 19thC hymns with 6 dense verses that you have to read from the hymnal, again it may take you out of your experience of w...