Whatever harm I may have done In all my life in all your wide creation If I cannot repair it I beg you to repair it,
And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the old Whom I have roughly dismissed As if I were not one of them. Where I have wronged them by it And cannot make amends I ask you To comfort them to overflowing,
And where there are lives I may have withered around me, Or lives of strangers far or near That I’ve destroyed in blind complicity, And if I cannot find them Or have no way to serve them,
Remember them. I beg you to remember them
When winter is over And all your unimaginable promises Burst into song on death’s bare branches. ~Anne Porter “A Short Testament” from Living Things.
Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. ~Corrie ten Boom from Clippings from My Notebook
Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next. ~Frederick Buechnerfrom Beyond Words
While this end of the year’s darkness lingers, beginning too early and lasting too late, I find myself hiding in my own wintry soul, knowing I have too often failed to do what is needed when it is needed.
I tend to look inward when I need to focus outside myself. I muffle my ears to stifle supplicating voices. I turn away rather than meet a stranger’s gaze.
I appeal to our known God when facing the unknown: He knows my darkness needs His Light. He unimaginably promises buds of hope and warmth and color and fruit will arise from my barest branches.
He brings me forth out of hiding, to be impossibly transformed.
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A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. Matthew 2:18 and Jeremiah 31:15
…as you sit beneath your beautifully decorated tree, eat the rich food of celebration, and laugh with your loved ones, you must not let yourself forget the horror and violence at the beginning and end of the Christmas story. The story begins with the horrible slaughter of children and ends with the violent murder of the Son of God. The slaughter depicts how much the earth needs grace. The murder is the moment when that grace is given.
Look into that manger representing a new life and see the One who came to die. Hear the angels’ celebratory song and remember that sad death would be the only way that peace would be given. Look at your tree and remember another tree – one not decorated with shining ornaments, but stained with the blood of God.
As you celebrate, remember that the pathway to your celebration was the death of the One you celebrate, and be thankful. ~Paul Tripp
We think of him as safe beneath the steeple, Or cosy in a crib beside the font, But he is with a million displaced people On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol His family is up and on that road, Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel, Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled, The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power, And death squads spread their curse across the world.
But every Herod dies, and comes alone To stand before the Lamb upon the throne. ~Malcolm Guite “Refugee”
When Christ was born in Bethlehem, Fair peace on earth to bring, In lowly state of love He came To be the children’s King.
And round Him, then, a holy band Of children blest was born, Fair guardians of His throne to stand Attendant night and morn.
And unto them this grace was giv’n A Saviour’s name to own, And die for Him Who out of Heav’n Had found on earth a throne.
O blessèd babes of Bethlehem, Who died to save our King, Ye share the martyrs’ diadem, And in their anthem sing!
Your lips, on earth that never spake, Now sound th’eternal word; And in the courts of love ye make Your children’s voices heard.
Lord Jesus Christ, eternal Child, Make Thou our childhood Thine; That we with Thee the meek and mild May share the love divine. ~Laurence Houseman “The Holy Innocents”
There is no consolation for families of those children lost to death too soon: a rogue king’s slaughter of innocents.
And still today – so much intentional death of the young, to inflict the most pain, lands flooded with blood, across disputed borders and faith.
Arms ache through centuries with the emptiness of grief, beds and pillows lie cold and unused, hugs never to come again.
There is no consolation for loss then or now; only mourning and great weeping, sobbing that wrings dry every human cell,
leaving only dust behind: our beginning and, without salvation, our end.
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I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night. — Khaled Hosseini from The Kite Runner
The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.
We cling to the present out of wariness of the past.
But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us.
The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived. ~Frederick Buechner from A Room Called Remember
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Something went wrong, says the empty house in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste. And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard like branches after a storm—a rubber cow, a rusty tractor with a broken plow, a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say. ~Ted Kooser, from “Abandoned Farmhouse” from Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems.
In 1959, when I was five years old, my father took a new job so our family moved from a large 3 story farm house in a rural community to a 1950’s newer rambler-style home just outside the city limits of the state capitol.
It was a big adjustment to move to a much smaller house without a basement or upper story, no garage, and no large haybarn nor chicken coop. It meant most things we owned didn’t make the move with us.
The rambler had two side-by-side mirror image rooms as the primary central living space between the kitchen/dining area on one side and the hallway to the bedrooms on the other. The living room could only be entered through the front door and the family room was accessed through the back door with a shared sandstone hearth in the center, containing a fireplace in each room. The only opening between the rooms had a folding door shut most of the year. In December, the door was opened to accommodate a Christmas tree, so it sat partially in the living room and depending on its generous width, spilled over into the family room. That way it was visible from both rooms, and didn’t take up too much floor space.
The living room, because it contained the only carpeting in the house, and our “best” furniture, was strictly off-limits. In order to keep our two matching sectional knobby gray fabric sofas, a green upholstered chair and gold crushed velvet covered love seat in pristine condition, the room was to be avoided unless we had company. The carpet was never to develop a traffic pattern, there would be no food, beverage, or pet ever allowed in that room, and the front door was not to be used unless a visitor arrived. The hearth never saw a fire lit on that side because of the potential of messy ashes or smoke smell.
This was not a room for toys or games. The chiming clock next to the hearth, wound with weighted cones on the end of chains, called out the hours without an audience.
One week before Christmas, a tree was chosen to fit in the space where it could overflow into the family room. I particularly enjoyed decorating the “family room” side of the tree, using all my favorite ornaments that were less likely to break if they fell on the linoleum floor on that side of the door.
It was almost as if the Christmas tree itself became divided, with a “formal” side in the living room and a “real life” face on the other side where the living (and hurting) was actually taking place.
The tree straddled more than just two rooms. Every year that tree’s branches reached out to shelter a family that was slowly, almost imperceptibly, falling apart, like the fir needles dropping to the floor to be swept away.
Something was going wrong, only I didn’t see it at the time.
Each year since, our Christmas tree, bearing those old ornaments from my childhood, reminds me of that still room of memories.
No longer am I wary of the past. As I sweep up the fir needles that inevitably drop, I no longer weep.
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When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. John 2:13-25
Come to your Temple here with liberation And overturn these tables of exchange Restore in me my lost imagination Begin in me for good, the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother, That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground Come as you came, a boy who sought his father With questions asked and certain answers found.
Come as you came this day, a man in anger Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through Face down for me the fear the shame the danger Teach me again to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death And tear the veil in two with your last breath. ~Malcolm Guite “Cleansing of the Temple”
I come home from the soaring in which I lost myself. I was song, and the refrain which is God is still roaring in my ears.
Now I am still and plain: no more words. ~Rainer Marie Rilke from The Book of Hours I
Some days, words simply don’t come to me, feeling lost and empty.
I am stilled and plain until I feel a breath that scatters and overturns me.
God is in the depth of these dark hours.
He is here, a remaining seed, waiting, knowing and sowing me, helping me blossom again.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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Now, newborn, in wide-eyed wonder he gazes up at his creation. His hand that hurled the world holds tight his mother’s finger. Holy light spills across her face and she weeps silent wondering tears to know she holds the One who has so long held her. ~Joan Rae Mills from “Mary”in Light Upon Light
Now burn, new born to the world, Doubled-naturèd name, The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame, Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!
Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came; Kind, but royally reclaiming his own; A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fíre hard-hurled.
Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east… ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “The Wreck of the Deutschland”
Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79 (Zechariah’s Song)
It never fails to surprise and amaze: a colorful dawn seems to come from nowhere.
There is always bleak dark, then a hint of light over the foothills in a long thin line, followed by the appearance of subtle dawn shadows as if the night needs to cling to the ground a little while longer, not wanting to relent and let us go.
Then color appears, erasing all doubt: the hills begin to glow orange along their crest, as if a flame is ignited and is spreading down a wick. Ultimately the explosion of Light occurs, spreading the orange pink palette unto the clouds above, climbing high to bathe the glaciers of Mount Baker and onto the peaks of the Twin Sisters.
~a Dayspring to our dimness~
From dark to light, ordinary to extraordinary. This gift is from the tender mercy of our God, who has become the Light of a new Day, guiding our feet on the pathway of peace.
We no longer need to stumble about in the shadows. He has come to light our darkness.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~John 1:5
Sleeping child, I wonder, have you a dream to share? May I see the things you see as you slumber there? I dream a wind that speaks, like music as it blows As if it were the breath of everything that grows.
I dream a flock of birds flying through the night Like silent stars on wings of everlasting light. I dream a flowing river, deep as a thousand years, Its fish are frozen sorrow, its water bitter tears.
I dream a tree so green, branches wide and long, And ev’ry leaf and ev’ry voice a song. I dream of a babe who sleeps, a life that’s just begun. A word that waits to be spoken. The promise of a world to come. ~Charles Bennett “Sleeping Child”
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And in despair I bowed my head; “There is no peace on earth,” I said; “For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellowfrom Christmas Bells
When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart. ~Howard Thurman “The Work of Christmas”
The core truth of Christ’s birth is that when God became man, he entered the world in a posture of extreme humility and extreme vulnerability, and that posture never changed.
Jesus, God made flesh, spent his life as a carpenter and an itinerant preacher. He proved so vulnerable that he was easily executed by the Roman Empire, with only the tiniest band of followers still clinging to their faith.
And if we who call ourselves Christians are to truly imitate Christ, then shouldn’t we also place little regard on our own worldly status? Jesus told us to take up our own cross, not to nail others to that terrible tree. Yes, Christ is King, but of a very different kind of kingdom, where the first are last, where you love your enemies, where you bless those who persecute you, and where you sacrifice to serve your neighbor. ~David French from Christianity is a Dangerous Faith in the New York TImes -12/21/25
Let the stable still astonish; Straw – dirt floor, dull eyes, Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen; Crumbling, crooked walls; No bed to carry that pain, And then, the child, Rag-wrapped, laid to cry In a trough. Who would have chosen this? Who would have said: “Yes, Let the God of all the heavens and earth Be born here, in this place?” Who but the same God Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms Of our hearts And says, “Yes, Let the God of Heaven and Earth Be born here – In this place. ~Leslie Leyland Fields “Let the Stable Still Astonish”
During Advent, I am guilty of nostalgia and sentiment, invoking the gentle bedtime story of that silent night, with the infant napping away in a hay-filled manger, His devoted parents hovering, the humble shepherds peering in the stable door.
All is calm. All is bright.
Yet no – this is not a sentimental story. It is astonishing.
God never sleeps.
This is no gentle bedtime story: – a teenage mother gives birth in a smelly cave among domestic animals, with no alternative but to lay her baby in a rough feed trough.
– the heavenly host appears to shepherds – the lowest of the low in society – shouting and singing glories which causes terror.
– Herod’s response to the news that a Messiah had been born is to kill a legion of male children whose parents undoubtedly begged for mercy, clinging to their about-to-be murdered sons.
– a family’s flight to Egypt as refugees seeking asylum so their son would not be yet another victim of Herod.
– Jesus grows up to become itinerant and homeless, tempted while fasting in the wilderness, owns nothing, rejected by His own people, betrayed by His disciples, sentenced to death by acclamation before Pilate, tortured, hung on a cross until He gave up his spirit.
– Jesus understood He was not of this world. He knew the power that originally brought him to earth as a helpless infant lying in an unforgiving stone trough would eventually move the stone covering His tomb.
He would be sacrificed, He would die and rise again, He would return again as King of all nations.
When I hear skeptics scoff at Christianity as a “crutch for the weak”, they underestimate the courage it takes to walk into church each week admitting we are a desperate people seeking rescue. We cling to the life preserver found in the Word, hanging on for dear life. It is only because of grace that we survive the tempests of temptation, shame, guilt and self-doubt to worship an all-knowing God who is not dead and who never ever sleeps.
This bedtime story is not for the faint of heart. It is meant to astonish. The Power invoked created the very dust we are made of, and breathed His life into us.
So be not afraid: the wrong shall fail the Right prevail. He chose this place to be among us. Peace on earth, good-will to men.
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8
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… Oh the heretics! Not to remember Bethlehem, or the star as bright as a sun, or the child born on a bed of straw! To know only of the dissolving Now!
Still they drowsed on – citizens of the pure, the physical world, they loomed in the dark: powerful of body, peaceful of mind, innocent of history.
Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas! And you are no heretics, but a miracle, immaculate still as when you thundered forth on the morning of creation! ~Mary Oliver from Goodness and Light
Christmas hath a darkness Brighter than the blazing noon, Christmas hath a chillness Warmer than the heat of June, Christmas hath a beauty Lovelier than the world can show: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low.
Earth, strike up your music, Birds that sing and bells that ring; Heaven hath answering music For all Angels soon to sing: Earth, put on your whitest Bridal robe of spotless snow: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low. ~Christina Rossetti “Christmas Eve”
…the deepest darkness is the place where God comes to us. In the womb, in the night, in the dreaming; when we are lost, when our world has come undone, when we cannot see the next step on the path; in all the darkness that attends our life, whether hopeful darkness or horrendous, God meets us. God’s first priority is not to do away with the dark but to be present to us in it. ~Jan Richardson
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12
God crossed the threshold, bringing Light down low into our darkness.
God is with us, God is for us. Let’s open the door for Him.
Traditional Austrian Lullaby lyrics Still, still, still, One can hear the falling snow. For all is hushed, The world is sleeping, Holy Star its vigil keeping. Still, still, still, One can hear the falling snow.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, ‘Tis the eve of our Saviour’s birth. The night is peaceful all around you, Close your eyes, Let sleep surround you. Sleep, sleep, sleep, ‘Tis the eve of our Saviour’s birth.
Dream, dream, dream, Of the joyous day to come. While guardian angels without number, Watch you as you sweetly slumber. Dream, dream, dream, Of the joyous day to come.
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…Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you… Ezekiel 2:6
Christ … is a thorn in the brain. Christ is God crying I am here, and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you, but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you, here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God. To walk through the fog of God toward the clarity of Christ is difficult because of how unlovely, how ungodly that clarity often turns out to be. ~Christian Wiman from Image Journal essay “Varieties of Quiet”
I see his blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies. I see his face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice—and carven by his power Rocks are his written words. All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree. ~Joseph Mary Plunkett “I See His Blood Upon the Rose”
Gardener/author Alphonse Karr in the mid-19th century wrote that even though most people grumble about roses having thorns, he was grateful that thorns have roses.
After all, there was a time when thorns were not part of our world, when we knew nothing of pain, suffering and death. In desiring more than we were already generously given, we have received more than we bargained for.
We reel under the thorns we have chosen to wander through – indeed we voluntarily elect the “thorns” of the far left and far right and suffer the consequences of our choices. Every day there is more bloodletting and battling and bullying, barricading us from all that is sweet and good and precious.
The unlovely, ungodly thorns tear us up, bloody us, make us cry out in pain and grief, deepen our fear that we may never overcome them.
Yet even the most brutal crown of thorns did not stop the loving sacrifice, can never thwart the sweetness of redemption, will not spoil the goodness, nor destroy the promise of salvation to come.
The Lord, our Rose, lightens every load.
“the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made” ~from the Nicene Creed
1. Maria walks amid the thorn, Kyrie eleison. Maria walks amid the thorn, Which seven years no leaf has born. Jesus and Maria.
2. What ‘neath her heart doth Mary bear? Kyrie eleison. A little child doth Mary bear, Beneath her heart He nestles there. Jesus and Maria.
3. And as the two are passing near, Kyrie eleison, Lo! roses on the thorns appear, Lo! roses on the thorns appear. Jesus and Maria.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere; True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us, And lightens every load. ~from “Lo! How a Rose”
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“Thin places,” the Celts call this space, Both seen and unseen, Where the door between the world And the next is cracked open for a moment And the light is not all on the other side. God shaped space. Holy. ~Sharlande Sledge
What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in your hand Ah, what then? ~Samuel Coleridge “What if you slept”
Advent does not train us to look away from suffering. No, it gives us the strength with which to face it. A cup of water. A stone on which to rest. A star to guide us. And the essential hope to know that somewhere, a door is opening.
Advent is how we survive, for to live in Advent is to root ourselves in the essential gravity of things, to know that love and goodness are always stronger than whatever seeks to defeat them. We train our eyes on the small and know that it matters. A flower. A kind word. A child in the manger. That is the way that God breaks through the void. ~Stephanie Saldaña“Living on Manger Street”
I know for a while again, the health of self-forgetfulness, looking out at the sky through a notch in the valley side, the black woods wintry on the hills, small clouds at sunset passing across. And I know that this is one of the thresholds between Earth and Heaven, from which I may even step forth from myself and be free. ~ Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 2000
The partition thins between this world and the world to come, or the next or the other world. On the other side of the partition the dead are living. As one grows older some of the dead grow more alive, more essentially themselves. One loves them more. As the next world grows more distinct, this one becomes, not more vague, but more strange. ~Wendell Berry “New Poems”
photo by Nate Gibson
“Thin places,” the Celts call this space, Both seen and unseen, Where the door between the world And the next is cracked open for a moment And the light is not all on the other side. God shaped space. Holy. ~Sharlande Sledge
Ah, what then?
Home is not nearly big enough for heaven to dwell. I must content myself with this visit to the thin edge, peering through the open door, and waiting until invited to come inside.
My 2025 Advent theme: On the threshold between day and night
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord— with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light. Zechariah 14:6-7
So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. ~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
In the stillness of a church where candles glow, In the softness of a fall of fresh white snow, In the brightness of the stars hat shine this night, In the calmness of a pool of healing light, In the clearness of a choir that softly sings, In the oneness of a hush of angels’ wings, In the mildness of a night by stable bare, In the quietness of a lull near cradle fair, There’s a patience as we wait for a new morn, And the presence of a child soon to be born. ~Sally Beamish “In the Stillness”
Gloomy night embraced the place Where the Noble Infant lay; The Babe looked up and showed his face, In spite of darkness, it was day. It was thy day, Sweet! and did rise Not from the east, but from thine eyes.
Welcome, all wonders in one sight! Eternity shut in a span; Summer in winter; day in night; Heaven in earth, and God in man. Great little one, whose all-embracing birth Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth. ~Richard Crashawfrom “In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord”
The pines look black in the half- light of dawn. Stillness…
While we slept an inch of new snow simplified the field. Today of all days the sun will shine no more than is strictly necessary.
At the village church last night the boys – shepherds and wisemen – pressed close to the manger in obedience, wishing only for time to pass; but the girl dressed as Mary trembled as she leaned over the pungent hay, and like the mother of Christ wondered why she had been chosen.
After the pageant, a ruckus of cards, presents, and homemade Christmas sweets. A few of us stayed to clear the bright scraps and ribbons from the pews, and lift the pulpit back in place.
When I opened the hundred-year-old Bible to Luke’s account of the Epiphany black dust from the binding rubbed off on my hands, and on the altar cloth. ~Jane Kenyon “At the Winter Solstice”
Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch…
There is not a guarantee in the world. Oh your needs are guaranteed; your needs are absolutely guaranteed by the most stringent of warranties, in the plainest, truest words: knock; seek; ask. But you must read the fine print. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” That’s the catch.
I think that the dying pray at the last not “please,” but “thank you,” as a guest thanks his host at the door… The universe was not made in jest but in solemn, incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. ~Annie Dillard “Winter Solstice” from The Abundance
It was a time like this, War & tumult of war, a horror in the air. Hungry yawned the abyss- and yet there came the star and the child most wonderfully there.
It was time like this of fear & lust for power, license & greed and blight- and yet the Prince of bliss came into the darkest hour in quiet & silent light.
And in a time like this how celebrate his birth when all things fall apart? Ah! Wonderful it is with no room on the earth the stable is our heart. ~Madeleine L’Engle “Into the Darkest Hour”
On this winter solstice, my prayer is to remember this day turns the world away from its descent into darkness and back toward the Light.
Even when everything is falling apart, the Light guides our way into the path of peace.
And may the Word of the Lord spill onto our hands and into the opened stable of our hearts.
My 2025 Advent theme: On the threshold between day and night
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord— with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light. Zechariah 14:6-7
So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. ~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
Lyrics:
Sure on this shining night Of star made shadows round, Kindness must watch for me This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north. All is healed, all is health. High summer holds the earth. Hearts all whole. Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone Of shadows on the stars. ~James Agee
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