All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold. ~William Carlos Williams “Winter Trees”
Winter – a quiet, still time for trees, a time for preparation for new attire, a time for root-stretching and branch-reaching.
Unless there are windstorms Unless there is frozen rain Unless there is heavy burden of snowfall
A tree might be taken unawares in the night, branches breaking like popping gunshots, as if innocent prey is hunted.
Remnants lie waiting on the ground, unaware of their brokenness, still budding, hopeful for yet another spring.
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Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression, Even as the troubled heart doth make In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air, Slowly in silent syllables recorded; This is the secret of despair, Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, Now whispered and revealed To wood and field. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Snow-Flakes”
Snowflakes cover all, settling in around us, drifting about the tucked corners of a downy white comforter
Watching as heaven comes to earth, plumps the pillows, cushions the landscape, and tries to lighten our grieving hearts.
I know dark clouds will gather ’round me I know my way is hard and steep But beauteous fields arise before me Where God’s redeemed, their vigils keep ~from Wayfaring Stranger
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Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, you sing. For no reason, you accept the way of being lost, cutting loose from all else and electing a world where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder that a steady center is holding all else. If you listen, that sound will tell you where it is and you can slide your way past trouble.
Certain twisted monsters always bar the path—but that’s when you get going best, glad to be lost, learning how real it is here on earth, again and again. ~William Stafford “Cutting Loose” from Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. ~William Butler Yeats from The Second Coming
Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me. ~Sojourner Truth
There are so many twists and turns in this life, we lose sight of the Center of all things. We don’t always know what is around the next corner. It can feel like things are falling apart, and we could be swallowed up.
Getting lost, tripping on rocks and falling into holes is part of reality. Bruises and scrapes remind us where we have been and what we have been through, yet we keep going.
We do not honor the arbitrary whims of bullies, nor dim ourselves within the darkness where they dwell.
So we sing:
We shall overcome. We’ll walk hand in hand. We are not alone. We are not afraid. We shall all be free. We shall live in peace. Someday.
God will see us through.
Thank you to Parker Palmer and Carrie Newcomer who spoke about the Stafford poem “Cutting Loose” here
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Oh, deep in my heart I do believe We shall overcome some day
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To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world. ~Karl Barth
Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that. ~Galway Kinnell “Prayer”
Ah — a resting place, where we come to understand it is not required of us to wrestle constantly and passionately with our God — nor pursue relentlessly all God’s decrees as we understand them, but only that we listen and wonder and hope and pray, that we might, perhaps, make just a little difference, one quiet grey day. ~Edwina Gateley “Just a Little Difference”
There is much shouting and gnashing of teeth going on in our country right now – some from the streets, some from computer keyboards and screens, and some from inside the echoing halls of government and a certain white house.
We need to stop shouting and clasp hands in prayer.
Nothing can right the world until we are right with God through talking to Him out of our depth of need and fear. Nothing can right the world until we submit ourselves wholly, bowed low, hands clasped, eyes closed, articulating the joy, the thanks, and the petitions weighing on our hearts.
An uprising is only possible when our voice comes alive, unashamed, unselfconscious, rising up from within us, uttering words that beseech and thank and praise. To rise up with hands clasped together calls upon a power needing no billions of funds and no weapons of destruction and no walls to keep people in or keep them out.
He is the Word, come to overcome and overwhelm the shambles left of our world. Nothing can be more victorious than the Amen, our Amen, at the end of our prayers.
Then we shall be where we would be, Then we shall be what we should be, Things that are not now, nor could be, Soon shall be our own. ~Thomas Kelly from his hymn “Praise the Savior, Ye Who Know Him”
Because I was not marked. Because I had neither fame nor beauty nor inquisitiveness. Because I did not ask. Because I used my hands. Because I finished my term on earth and had no knowledge of either fear nor care, no morning knowledge, no knowledge of evening, and those who came before and those following after had no more knowledge of me than I had of them. ~Mary Ruefle from “Marked”
Whether we are coming or going, beginning or ending, leading or following, rising or setting, north or south, east or west ~ one day we shall be where or what we should be, without fear nor care nor knowledge.
We’ll journey the continuum of grace and comfort, part of our Creator’s purpose and design.
So even if not now in our comings and goings, we will never be lost nor adrift.
We are forever found.
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In winter, the earth remembers its hidden life; a silence deepens that is not emptiness but preparation. ~Rowan Williams
When, in the middle of the night, you wake with the certainty you’ve done it all wrong, when you wake and see clearly all the places you’ve failed, in that moment, when dreams will not return, this is the chance for your most gentle voice— the one you reserve for those you love most— to say to you quietly, oh sweetheart, this is not yet the end of the story. Sleep will not come, but somehow, in that wide-awake moment there is peace— the kind that does not need everything to be right before it arrives. The kind that comes from not fighting what is real. The peace that rises in the dark on its sure dark wings and flies true with no moon, no stars. ~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “With Astonishing Tenderness” from The Unfolding
Peaceful sleep has been elusive over the last 10 nights.
I realize a significant number of people are resting more easily. They celebrate an overwhelming number of rapid changes instituted by a new government administration over a few days.
I’m not among them.
Sweetheart, this is not yet the end of the story. It never is.
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But a dragon lies in ambush for the traveler; take care he does not bite you and inject you his poison of unbelief. Seeing this numerous company winning salvation, he selects and stalks his prey. In your journey to the Father of souls, your way lies past that dragon. How shall you pass him? You must have “your feet stoutly with the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15) so that, even if he does bite you, he may not hurt you. ~St. Cyril of Jerusalem
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in instructing catechumens, wrote: “The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.”
No matter what form the dragon may take, it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell, and this being the case, it requires considerable courage at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller. ~Flannery O’Connor from “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”
Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh, There’s always Pooh and Me. Whatever I do, he wants to do, “Where are you going today?” says Pooh: “Well, that’s very odd ‘cos I was too. Let’s go together,” says Pooh, says he. “Let’s go together,” says Pooh.
“Let’s look for dragons,” I said to Pooh. “Yes, let’s,” said Pooh to Me. We crossed the river and found a few- “Yes, those are dragons all right,” said Pooh. “As soon as I saw their beaks I knew. That’s what they are,” said Pooh, said he. “That’s what they are,” said Pooh.
“Let’s frighten the dragons,” I said to Pooh. “That’s right,” said Pooh to Me. “I’m not afraid,” I said to Pooh, And I held his paw and I shouted “Shoo! Silly old dragons!”- and off they flew.
“I wasn’t afraid,” said Pooh, said he, “I’m never afraid with you.”
So wherever I am, there’s always Pooh, There’s always Pooh and Me. “What would I do?” I said to Pooh, “If it wasn’t for you,” and Pooh said: “True, It isn’t much fun for One, but Two, Can stick together, says Pooh, says he. “That’s how it is,” says Pooh. ~A.A. Milne from “Us Two”
<Here there be dragons> was any place on ancient maps that was unknown and unexplored- a place to avoid at all costs~ or for the daring traveler, pointing to exactly the place to explore.
Here there be dragons marks the remainder of our days that dwell at the edge of life’s roadmap ~ unknown and full of peril ~
So many dragons to encounter, ready to swallow us whole if we follow a careless leader, make a wrong turn, ignore all signs of impending hazards.
Dragons singe our britches when we stray beyond the known borders of the map.
There are dark valleys to pass through, so many mysteries unsolved, so many stories of frightening journeys told – yet we stick together through troubles.
We pull on our stoutest shoes, ready to trek where ever we must go, never straying from the well-worn path of those faithful few who have managed to stay out of the jaws of dragons to tell the cautionary tale.
“I’m never afraid with you… and that’s how it is…”
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Oh the starving Winter-lapse! Ice-bound, hunger-pinched and dim; Dormant roots recall their saps, Empty nests show black and grim, Short-lived sunshine gives no heat, Undue buds are nipped by frost, Snow sets forth a winding-sheet, And all hope of life seems lost. ~Christina Rossetti “Winter” from “Seasons”
I sought the wood in winter When every leaf was dead; Behind the wind-whipped branches The winter sun set red. The coldest star was rising To greet that bitter air, The oaks were writhen giants; Nor bud nor bloom was there. The birches, white and slender, In deathless marble stood, The brook, a white immortal, Slept silent in the wood. ~Willa Cather from “I Sought the Wood in Winter”
A wintry soul can be a cold and empty place.
I appeal to my Creator who knows my struggle.
He asks me to keep my promises because He keeps His promises. His buds of hope and light and warmth still grace my bare branches.
He brings me out of the dark night’s chill, into the freshness of a frosty dawn, to finish what He brought me here to do.
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May the wind always be in her hair May the sky always be wide with hope above her And may all the hills be an exhilaration the trials but a trail, all the stones but stairs to God. May she be bread and feed many with her life and her laughter May she be thread and mend brokenness and knit hearts… ~Ann Voskamp from “A Prayer for a Daughter”
Nate and Ben and brand new baby LeaDaddy and Lea
Mommy and Lea
“I have noticed,” she said slowly, “that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is – in the blink of an eye, the mother can see the child again as she was when she was born, when she learned to walk, as she was at any age — at any time, even when the child is fully grown….” ~Diana Gabaldon from Voyager
Just checking to see if she is real…
Your rolling and stretching had grown quieter that stormy winter night thirty-two years ago, but still no labor came as it should. Already a week overdue post-Christmas, you clung to amnion and womb, not yet ready. Then as the wind blew more wicked and snow flew sideways, landing in piling drifts, the roads became more impassable, nearly impossible to traverse.
So your dad and I tried, concerned about your stillness and my advanced age, worried about being stranded on the farm far from town. When a neighbor came to stay with your brothers overnight, we headed down the road and our car got stuck in a snowpile in the deep darkness, our tires spinning, whining against the snow. Another neighbor’s earth mover dug us out to freedom.
You floated silent and still, knowing your time was not yet.
Creeping slowly through the dark night blizzard, we arrived to the warm glow of the hospital, your heartbeat checked out steady, all seemed fine.
I slept not at all.
The morning’s sun glistened off sculptured snow as your heart ominously slowed. You and I were jostled, turned, oxygenated, but nothing changed. You beat even more slowly, threatening to let go your tenuous grip on life.
The nurses’ eyes told me we had trouble. The doctor, grim faced, announced delivery must happen quickly, taking you now, hoping we were not too late. I was rolled, numbed, stunned, clasping your father’s hand, closing my eyes, not wanting to see the bustle around me, trying not to hear the shouted orders, the tension in the voices, the quiet at the moment of opening when it was unknown what would be found.
And then you cried. A hearty healthy husky cry, a welcomed song of life uninterrupted. Perturbed and disturbed from the warmth of womb, to the cold shock of a bright lit operating room, your first vocal solo brought applause from the surrounding audience who admired your purplish pink skin, your shock of damp red hair, your blue eyes squeezed tight, then blinking open, wondering and wondrous, emerging and saved from a storm within and without.
You were brought wrapped for me to see and touch before you were whisked away to be checked over thoroughly, your father trailing behind the parade to the nursery. I closed my eyes, swirling in a brain blizzard of what-ifs.
If no snow storm had come, you would have fallen asleep forever within my womb, no longer nurtured by my aging and failing placenta, cut off from what you needed to stay alive. There would have been only our soft weeping, knowing what could have been if we had only known, if God had provided a sign to go for help.
So you were saved by a providential storm and dug out from a drift: I celebrate when I hear your voice singing- your students love you as their teacher and mentor, you are a thread born to knit and mend hearts, all because of a night of drifting snow.
My annual retelling of the most remarkable day of my life thirty-two years ago today when our daughter Eleanor (“Lea”) Sarah Gibson was born in an emergency C-section, hale and hearty because the good Lord sent a wind and snow storm to blow us into the hospital in time to save her.
She is married to her true love Brian– he is another blessing sent from the Lord. Together they have their own miracle child, happily born in the middle of the summer rather than snow-drift season.
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Usually, after turning out that forgotten barn light, I sit on the edge of the tractor bucket for a few minutes and let my eyes adjust to the night outside. City people always notice the darkness here, but it’s never very dark if you wait till your eyes owl out a little….
I’m always glad to have to walk down to the barn in the night, and I always forget that it makes me glad. I heave on my coat, stomp into my barn boots and trudge down toward the barn light, muttering at myself. But then I sit in the dark, and I remember this gladness, and I walk back up to the gleaming house, listening for the horses. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg from A Light in the Barn
…all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.. ~Luke 2:18-19
Inside the barn the sheep were standing, pushed close to one another. Some were dozing, some had eyes wide open listening in the dark. Some had no doubt heard of wolves. They looked weary with all the burdens they had to carry, like being thought of as stupid and cowardly, disliked by cowboys for the way they eat grass about an inch into the dirt, the silly look they have just after shearing, of being one of the symbols of the Christian religion. In the darkness of the barn their woolly backs were full of light gathered on summer pastures. Above them their white breath was suspended, while far off in the pine woods, night was deep in silence. The owl and rabbit were wondering, along with the trees, if the air would soon fill with snowflakes, but the power that moves through the world and makes our hair stand on end was keeping the answer to itself. ~Tom Hennen “Sheep in the Winter Night” from Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems.
Yet another school shooting takes hold of my heart and breaks it: two of our children are school teachers, our grandchildren are students.
there is so much about this world I don’t understand – the news of each day causes more questions and a sense of ever deeper despair.
There are times when I feel my hair stand on end, wondering where it all leads.
Half a lifetime ago, I was far more confident after so many years in school and training; now I am well aware there is much I can never know or understand.
To accept the mystery and power that moves through this world is an awe-filled load to carry.
All shall be revealed in the fullness of time. Yet shortening time is gets emptier by the minute.
I want to know why too many are taken from us too young, why there is persisting darkness and evil causing fear and suffering, why we stumble and fall and fail again and again, why we don’t trust one another or trust God when there are simply things that can’t be known or understood yet.
Most of all I need faith that God has my life and your life in His hands. His power moving through our hearts is real and true and trustworthy even if we don’t know all the answers to myriad questions yet.
So like sheep, huddled and frightened, we wait for our Shepherd’s voice to tell us where to go and what comes next.
He leaves the light on for us because, like sheep, like children, the darkness and the unknown can feel overwhelming.
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This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.
God comes.
He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons
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