of Faith
Patty
Kirk
Makoto
Fujimura
Robert
McLeod
Susan
Olds
Julian
Dobbs
Stephen
Davis
Art Gallery
PATTY KIRK
The Gospel of Christmas
as a child, as a young adult nonbeliever —
Looking more closely at that story, I find exam-
I’m assuming college, as that’s what hap-
ples of it being, for a lot of people in a lot of ways,
pens to a lot of Christians — and then an
not particularly good news; kind of problematic
adult believer. As I was reading the book
news. Like for Mary, who was going to be this per- I found all of that really interesting, but
son who was having what would seem to every-
probably the most interesting was how
body she lived among, an out of wedlock child.
you did look at it from a writer’s eye and
And to Joseph who was going to be marrying this thinking about things from other people’s
person he
perspectives that perhaps a lot of people
had thought don’t really pay attention to because they
was a virgin, are focused on the story of Jesus and not
and now it
really what’s going on in everybody’s
seemed like
brains. It was pretty fascinating. As you
she wasn’t.
mentioned, you’re not a theologian, so
Even to Jesus, what was it that inspired you to write a
himself, who book on Advent and Christmas?
is described
as “lower-
I came back to faith, I guess I would say it, in
ing himself”
adulthood and I was a writer and I was kind of
to become
grappling with my new faith at that time, and my
one of us. It
way of grappling was to write about things. So I
seems like
started a file on my computer called the “Advent
problematic good news, interesting good news.
File” and it had all of my little essays in it. Every
So when I became a believer as an adult, I really
Christmas I would write two or three times,
started studying that aspect of the story of Jesus’ it would seem like, about some aspect of the
birth. Looking and writing about it, more closely Christmas story that really struck me. Often just
at what kind of news that was for me as a child,
a word or some detail of the Christmas story. I
for me as nonbeliever in my young adulthood.
would just store those and then I had lots of them
For me, after I had rediscovered my faith in God
and at some point I decided, “well, I think I want
in adulthood and as I became a mom, I was try-
to put this together and make it into a book that
ing to shape my children’s experience of God’s
kind of gets at some of the things I was thinking
as a human. Also, as a person who struggles at
about each Christmas.”
Christmastime with a trauma that happened at
Christmastime that revisits me — all of these
Maybe you could tell the readers what
“me’s” grapple with the good news of Jesus’ birth.
you enjoyed the most when writing, The
Gospel of Christmas? Perhaps what your
It’s interesting that you brought up some
favorite chapter is in the book, either
of the aspects about your different views
to have written or possibly thoughts it
... who is
described as
“lowering him-
self” to become
one of us.
EOF: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us about your new book, The Gospel of
Christmas, Reflections for Advent. Why don’t we just jump straight in and you tell us a
little bit about your book, The Gospel of Christmas and what you feel makes it unique.
KIRK: I think that when most people think of the word “gospel” they think of Jesus and resurrection
and preaching the gospel and sometimes they are aware of the fact that the word gospel actually
means “good news.” It has always seemed strange to me that when preaching Jesus’ death and resur-
rection, the resurrection is certainly good news, but the death part doesn’t seem like much good news.
I have always been interested in the story of God becoming a human and, in fact, the first instance
of the word gospel comes in the story of the birth with the angels preaching to the shepherds, “good
news of great joy.” I have always felt like this was the crux of my faith; God becoming a human and
dwelling among us and being with us.