Jesus comes near and he beholds the city And looks on us with tears in his eyes, And wells of mercy, streams of love and pity Flow from the fountain whence all things arise. He loved us into life and longs to gather And meet with his beloved face to face How often has he called, a careful mother, And wept for our refusals of his grace, Wept for a world that, weary with its weeping, Benumbed and stumbling, turns the other way, Fatigued compassion is already sleeping Whilst her worst nightmares stalk the light of day. But we might waken yet, and face those fears, If we could see ourselves through Jesus’ tears. ~Malcolm Guite “Jesus Weeps”
When Jesus wept, the falling tear in mercy flowed beyond all bound; when Jesus groaned, a trembling fear seized all the guilty world around. ~William Billings
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. ~Luke 19:41-42
Commencing this holy week of remembrance, knowing how our world is in a terrible disarray, too many sleeping in the street, some in graves, many grieving losses, all wondering what comes next.
On this journey, we face our own fears of vulnerability and mortality, these days when thorns overwhelm emerging blossoms~~
To remember what He did this week long ago, and still does today to conquer the shroud and the stone, to defy death, makes all the difference to me.
Indeed Jesus wept and groaned for us.
To be known for who we are by a God who weeps for us and moans with pain we caused: we can know no greater love.
This week ends our living for self, only to die, and begins our dying to self, in order to live.
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
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Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, And black are the waters that sparkled so green. The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us At rest in the hollows that rustle between. Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow; Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease! The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas. ~Rudyard Kipling “Seal Lullaby”
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. Psalm 139: 13-18
The call came in the middle of a busy night as we worked on a floppy baby with high fever, a croupy toddler whose breathing squeezed and squeaked, a pale adolescent transfusing due to leukemia bleeding.
It was an anencephalic baby just born, unexpected, unwanted in a hospital across town, and she needed a place to die.
Our team of three puzzled how to manage a baby without a brain– simply put her in a room, swaddled, kept warm but alone? Hydrate her with a dropper of water to moisten her mouth? Offer her a taste of milk?
She arrived by ambulance, the somber attendants leaving quickly, unnerved by her mewing cries.
I took the wrapped bundle and peeled away the layers to find a plump full term baby, her hands gripping, arms waving once freed; just another newborn until I pulled off her stocking cap and looked into an empty crater — only a brainstem lumped at the base.
No textbook pictures had prepared me for the wholeness, the holiness of this living, breathing child.
Her forehead quit above the eyebrows with the entire skull missing, tufts of soft brown hair fringed her perfect ears, around the back of her neck. Her eyelids puffy, squinting tight, seemingly too big above a button nose and rosebud pink lips.
She squirmed under my fingers, her muscles strong, breaths coming steady despite no awareness of light or touch or noise.
Yet she cried in little whimpers, mouth working, seeking, lips tentatively gripping my fingertip. A bottle warmed, nipple offered, a tentative suck allowing tiny flow, then, amazing, a gurgling swallow.
Returning every two hours, more for me than for her, I picked her up to smell the salty sweet scent of amnion still on her skin as she grew dusky.
Her breathing weakened, her muscles loosened, giving up her grip on a world she would never see or hear or feel to behold something far more glorious, as I gazed into her emptiness, waiting to be filled.
Divinity is not playful. 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 from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature— have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20
All creatures are doing their best to help God in His birth of Himself.
You and I weren’t conceived by random happenstance, nor are those unwelcome souls who are wished or washed away before ever taking a breath.
We are here because we are earnestly needed and wanted, by a Power and Divinity beyond our comprehension, Who has capacity for love and compassion unmatched by anything in our earthly experience.
We aren’t a cosmic joke or mistake. We aren’t pawns in the universe’s chess game.
Though we may loll about in the smelly stuff of this life, thinking what we say or do doesn’t matter a hill of beans, we are created by God as a witness to who He is, in whose image we are made.
He won’t be ignored; we have no excuses.
We were blind but now we see…
God looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. Psalm 53:2
Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. ~C. S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory
photo of San Juan Islands by Joel DeWaard
We are united by our joint creation as the Image of God. Not one of us reflects God more than another but together form His body and His kingdom on earth.
Dr. King’s words and wisdom continue to inform us of our shortcomings sixty years later. We flounder in our flaws and brokenness; so many question not only the validity of equality of all people of all shades, but even doubt the existence of a God who would create a world that includes the crippled body, the troubled mind, the questioned gender, the genetically challenged, those never allowed to draw a breath.
Yet we are all one, a composition made up of white and black keys too often discordant, sometimes dancing to different tempos, on rare occasions a symphony.
The potential is there for harmony, and Dr. King would see and hear that in his time on earth.
Perhaps today we unite only in our shared tears, shed for continued strife and disagreements, shed for injustice that results in senseless killings, shed for our inability to hold up one another as holy in God’s eyes as His intended creation, no matter our color, our origin, our defects, our differences and similarities.
There are no gradations in God nor in His intended harmonious creation. We can weep together, anticipating the day when the Lord God wipes all tears away.
…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4: 4-5
You, who are beyond our understanding, have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ. You, who are the uncreated God, have made yourself a creature for us. You, who are the untouchable One, have made yourself touchable to us. You, who are most high, make us capable of understanding your amazing love and the wonderful things you have done for us. Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation, the mystery of your life, example and doctrine, the mystery of your cross and passion, the mystery of your resurrection and ascension. ~Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)– prayer
There is nothing I can give you Which you have not; But there is much that, While I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us Unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future Which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. Take joy.
And so, at this Christmastime, I greet you with the prayer that for you, Now and forever, The day breaks and the shadows flee away. – Fra Giovanni Giocondo letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi, Christmas Eve 1513
To each one of you who come to this page each day to read words, hear music, immerse in pictures: take heart!
The shadows flee away with day break.
May you be encouraged to explore the mystery of Who has been born within us, in the fullness of time.
Merry Christmas Day to one and all from our hilltop farm –
May all be well for you and yours.
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Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, “Come; see the oxen kneel, “In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,” I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. ~Thomas Hardy “The Oxen”
Says a country legend told every year: Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see what the creatures do as that long night tips over. Down on their knees they will go, the fire of an old memory whistling through their minds!
So I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold I creaked back the barn door and peered in. From town the church bells spilled their midnight music, and the beasts listened – yet they lay in their stalls like stone.
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! As for Bethlehem, that blazing star still sailed the dark, but only looked for me. Caught in its light, listening again to its story, I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me the best it could all night. ~Mary Oliver“Christmas Poem” from Goodness and Light
Growing up on my childhood farm, remembering the magic of Christmas eve night, I bundled myself up to stay warm in our barn, to witness an unbelievable sight.
At midnight we knew the animals knelt down, speaking words we could all understand, to worship a Child born in Bethlehem town, in a barn, long ago in a far away land.
They were there that night, to see and to hear, the blessings that came from the sky. They patiently stood watch at the manger near, in a barn, while shepherds and kings stopped by.
My trips to the barn were always too late, our cows would be chewing, our chickens asleep, our horses breathing softly, cats climbing the gate, in our barn, there was never a neigh, moo or peep.
But I knew they had done it, I just missed it again! They were plainly so calm, well-fed and at peace in the sweet smelling straw, all snug in their pens, in a barn, a mystery, once more, took place.
Even now, I still bundle to go out Christmas eve, in the hope I’ll catch them just once more this time. Though I’m older and grayer, I still firmly believe in the barn, a Birth happened amid cobwebs and grime.
Our horses sigh low as they hear me come near, that tells me the time I hope for is now, they will drop to their knees without any fear in our barn, as worship, all living things bow.
I wonder anew at God’s immense trust for His creatures so sheltered that darkening night – the mystery of why of all places, His Son must begin life in a barn: a welcoming most holy and right. ~ “In the Barn” (written Christmas Eve 1999)
I walk to the barn tonight as I do each year, Counting my blessings, knowing my flaws, Praying for family and friends so dear, And for each precious creature with hooves or paws.
Each horse is content and a witness to peace, And I wish every person could know, Sadness and worry for a moment can cease, While patting noses down a stall row.
For once I see the sky is clear And stars are shining bright The northeast wind is coming near And briskly chills this special night.
For weeks stars hid behind a cloud Of doubt, of fear, of weeping rain, Explosions at once so horrid and loud The whole world instantly felt the pain.
Like stars that glow through blackest dark Good overwhelms bad with barely left trace All owed to a Child who left His mark By giving Himself in infinite grace.
(written Christmas Eve 2001)
O magnum mysterium Et admirabile sacramentum Ut animalia viderent Dominum natum Jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera Meruerunt portare Dominum Christum Alleluia
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
When everyone had gone I sat in the library With the small silent tree, She and I alone. How softly she shone!
And for the first time then For the first time this year, I felt reborn again, I knew love’s presence near.
Love distant, love detached And strangely without weight, Was with me in the night When everyone had gone And the garland of pure light Stayed on, stayed on. ~ May Sarton “Christmas Light” from Collected Poems
That afternoon, the air’s large hand took hold of their backyard apricot tree, the one that had fruited, bountifully, a lush yield in late summer, caught it in a downdraft of chill, shook it lightly, again, again, loosening each leaf from its thumb of stem. For two days I watched the leaves’ pale, ground-ward drift, each leaf singly, in its gentle shedding, among all the glints of gold, each crumpled flick of fiber from its stem’s thumb a departure, a declaration. An announcement, God saying, gently, Thank You for a lovely job. Now, time to let go. ~Luci Shaw “Loewy’s Apricot Tree, Fall 2022”
The child wonders at the Christmas Tree: Let him continue in the spirit of wonder…
The accumulated memories of annual emotion May be concentrated into a great joy Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion When fear came upon every soul: Because the beginning shall remind us of the end And the first coming of the second coming. ~T.S. Eliot from “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees”
…the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory Isaiah 60:19
I watch the eastern sky from the moment I get up each day. This time of year, most mornings remain dark, rainy and gray but there are some dawns that start with a low simmer around the base of the Cascade peaks. The light crawls up the slopes and climbs to illuminate the summits, then explodes into the skies.
Christ started small and lowly, then slowly crawled, then He walked beside us. He climbed up willingly to sacrifice Himself – to let go for our sake.
Once risen, He returned to the brilliance of the heavens.
Look east, good people, Love is on its way again, and again and again.
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
The tree of life my soul hath seen, Laden with fruit, and always green; The trees of nature fruitless be Compared with Christ the apple tree. This beauty doth all things excel; By faith I know, but ne’er can tell The glory which I now can see In Jesus Christ the apple tree. The tree of life . . . For happiness I long have sought, And pleasure dearly I have bought; I missed for all, but now I see ’Tis found in Christ the apple tree. 2 I’m wearied with my former toil, Here I shall sit and rest awhile; Under the shadow I will be Of Jesus Christ the apple tree. The tree of life . . . This fruit doth make my soul to thrive, It keeps my dying faith alive; Which makes my soul in haste to be With Jesus Christ the apple tree. The tree of life . . . (from the collection of Joshua Smith, New Hampshire, 1784)
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All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. ~William Butler Yeats from “Easter, 1916”
…just calm clean clear statements one after another, fitting together like people holding hands... a feeling eerily like a warm hand brushed against your cheek, and you sit there, near tears, smiling, and then you stand up. Changed. ~Brian Doyle “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever”
In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, ad without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5
Have you ever read words that made such a difference in your thinking that you felt changed? Words that hold on to you and won’t let you go?
The gospel of Jesus’ descent to earth is just such a story.
From the divinely inspired declarations of the prophets, the joy and heartbreak spoken in the Psalms ~from His birth and ministry and death and rising~ Words linked from the very beginning of the universe, to the here and now, to what is to come.
Life can be a thick fog, leaving us lost without a sense of direction. Scripture brings light and clarity in the darkness, so we might hold hands with all who have come before, and those after.
The Father immerses us in His Creation. The Son, Word in flesh, walks alongside us. The Spirit connects us when we feel alone and hopeless.
Changed.
Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye; 1 Corinthians 15:51
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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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The woods is shining this morning. Red, gold and green, the leaves lie on the ground, or fall, or hang full of light in the air still. Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes the place it has been coming to forever. It has not hastened here, or lagged. See how surely it has sought itself, its roots passing lordly through the earth. See how without confusion it is all that it is, and how flawless its grace is. Running or walking, the way is the same. Be still. Be still. “He moves your bones, and the way is clear.” ~Wendell Berry “Grace”
If I’m unsure, as I often am, about where I’ve been, where I am, where I’m going, I look to the cycles of the seasons to be reminded all things must come round
what is barren will bud what buds will grow lush and fruit what flourishes will fade and fall, and come to rest and stillness
All things come round, making the way to Him clear. Grace forges a path my bones and I follow.
Shining as the smallest bud, shining in fruitfulness, shining when fallen, shining in His glory.
I’ll be still. Will be still.
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All that summer the sun refused to open On the sky, and the river carried rain-spots Down and over the weir, and by the footbridge Swans’ eggs chilled in their nest. I saw them, rained on, Blue and dead as the moon the clouds were hiding Every night when I looked to find it. What could Live, neglected like that? The wind, cold and green With the smell of the hawthorn flowering, came Brooding over the fens, but what could it bring me, Who had chosen to view the world with sadness, Or had taken its sadness into myself, Gift and charism? One day, though, I saw them, Triple vee-wakes on dark tree-printed currents: One ahead of the others, big and whiter Than the cloud-pale sky. Two cygnets, gray, living, Broken free from the death I’d assumed for them.
Well, their ways are not my ways. The next summer, Walking that same towpath, heavy with a child Who had come to me after years of asking — Who was taking his time just then, head downward, Happy where he was — I saw them paddling Under the bridge, where it laid out its shadow, Current-rumpled. The same swans? Or three strangers Hummed down onto a river pricked with sunlight, Strange and new as the season? I can’t say now. I remember the baby’s head engaging, Heavy, ready, real, an impending pressure. I remember the wakes widening, the river Flowing down in the sun, and by the footbridge, Gray, empty, the mess of twigs, leaves, and feathers. ~Sally Thomas “Swans”
Decades ago, there were several years when I took sadness into myself, feeling empty and barren with no hope that could change.
Sorrow became the bridge I walked across, unaware what I would find on the other side, assuming only it would be more of the same.
If I had listened to my own tearful prayers, I might have understood –even the most comfortable nests are abandoned when it is time to break free from the sadness.
I gave up my timing and my plans to let things be according to His will.
And life happened. And sadness no longer found a place in me. The empty was filled, the sorrow overwhelmed with blessing. Babies born, grown, now flown away to a life and babies of their own.
All from the one nest, emptied, as ever it should be.
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