As once a Child was planted in a womb
(and later, erected on a hill, a wooden cross)
one year we dug a hole to plant a tree.
Our choice, a Cornus Kousa with its fine,
pink, four-petaled bracts, each curving lip
touched with a red as deep as human blood.
It rooted well, and every year it grows
more glorious, bursting free in Spring—bud
into full flower, flame-colored, flushed as wine.
Even the slim sapling’s roughened bark
speaks of that tree, nail-pierced and dark.
Now, each new year, fresh blossoms shine
radiant, and each cross-blessed,
as if all love and loveliness has been compressed
into a flower’s face, fresh as the Son’s
new-born presence, a life only just begun.

The dogwood leaves turn iron red in Fall,
their centers fully ripening—into small seeded balls,
each one a fruit vivid as Mary’s love, and edible.
The sciontree, once sprung from Jesse’s root,
speaks pain and life and love compressed
and taken in, eye, mouth, heart. Incredible
that now all Eucharists in our year suggest
the living Jesus is our Christmas guest.
~Luci Shaw “Dogwood Tree” from Eye of the Beholder

Tree, we take leave of you; you’re on your own.
Put down your taproot with its probing hairs
that sluice the darkness and create unseen
the tree that mirrors you below the ground.
For when we plant a tree, two trees take root:
the one that lifts its leaves into the air,
and the inverted one that cleaves the soil
to find the runnel’s sweet, dull silver trace
and spreads not up but down, each drop a leaf
in the eternal blackness of that sky.
The leaves you show uncurl like tiny fists
and bear small button blossoms, greenish white,
that quicken you. Now put your roots down deep;
draw light from shadow, break in on earth’s sleep.
~Roy Scheele “Planting a Dogwood”

For every leaf and blossom unfolding to the Light above, there is a root with tendrils surging deep to conquer the underground darkness.

Christ is born as our deep root of salvation.

He nourishes so we might flourish;
we bloom because of Light drawn from shadow.

Advent 2023 theme
…because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song

Light beyond shadow,
Joy beyond tears,
Love that is greater when darkest our fears;
deeper the Peace when the storm is around,
nearer the Hope to the lost who is found.

Light of the world, ever shining, shining!
Hope in our pain and our dying.
in our darkness, there is Light,
in our crying, there is Love,
in the noise of life imparting
Peace
that passes understanding.

Light beyond shadow,
Joy beyond tears,
Love that is greater when darkest our fears;
deeper the Peace when the storm is around,
nearer the Hope to the lost who is found.
-Paul Wigmore

My love and tender one are you
My sweet and lovely son are you
You are my love and darling you
Unworthy, I of you

Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia.

Your mild and gentle eyes proclaim
The loving heart with which you came
A tiny tender hapless bairn
With boundless grace of face

Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia.

King of Kings, most holy one
Gone the sun eternal one
You are my god and helpless son
High ruler of mankind

Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia.

My love and tender one are you
My sweet and lovely son are you
You are my love and darling you
Unworthy, I of you

Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia.
~Traditional Gaelic carol Taladh Chriosda (Christ Child Lullaby) from the Hebrides