May you have much joy in your life!

Dear Congregation,

I pray that you are finding Advent 2024 to be a meaningful season in your own life. To help that happen, I’ll be sharing these Christmas Fund Advent resources weekly with you, as I think they are creative, informative, and challenging in a good way! What an amazing creator is our God! The pink candle of JOY will be lit on our Advent Wreath in worship on this third Sunday in Advent. I pray that you’ll be present in person or on Facebook to experience the joy of worship in community.

May you have much joy in your life! It is a gift from God.

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Candy

At 7,000 feet below the earth’s surface, yeti crabs (Kiwa puravida) can be found dancing over cracks in the ocean floor. These remarkable crustaceans wave their large fuzzy claws over their heads and sway back and forth over and over again. When scientists first found these crabs, living in what they thought were unimaginable conditions, they were fascinated by this deep-sea dance party. These crabs wave their arms up in the air like they just don’t care all day and night. Not to mention, they are constantly bumping into each other, but without causing any fuss or fights among them. They just keep on swaying together.

For a long time, scientists thought that all life needed the light of the sun to exist. But these recent deep-sea discoveries have found creatures that use the light and warmth from the Earth instead. At the bottom of the ocean, volcanic cracks in the seafloor will suddenly open a spring of heat and nutrient-rich gases that give them what they need to survive. And yeti crabs not the only ones. Other creatures, even our friend the purple octopus, have been found gathering around these vents.

Science writer Sabrina Imbler reflects on this survival strategy by, saying, “I prefer to think of it not as a last resort but as a radical act of choosing what nourishes you.” She goes on to explain that the yeti crabs really are moving with meaning, that they “dance to live.” The swaying allows them to gather bacteria they use as food to get caught in their claws and to get oxygen from the constant motion. They are basically farming through dancing!

When Mary arrives and greets her cousin Elizabeth, Elizabeth says to her, “when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy!” I wonder about what baby John the Baptist and the yeti crabs have to show us about joy. How it gets expressed with our bodies; how it overflows to those around us and just needs to be shared; how important it is for life and helps us find what nourishes us.

How do you share your joy with others? How does it feel in your body? Can you make your own “yeti crab dance?”