Category: meekness

An Advent Threshold: Came Down

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The Word became flesh.
Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed.
Incarnation.
It is not tame.
It is not beautiful.
It is uninhabitable terror.
It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light.

Agonized laboring led to it,
vast upheavals of intergalactic space,
time split apart,
a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself.
You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this:
“God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God… who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”
Came down.
Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see.
It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms.
It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.
~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark

Down he came from up,
and in from out,
and here from there.
A long leap,
an incandescent fall
from magnificent
to naked, frail, small,
through space,
between stars,
into our chill night air,
shrunk, in infant grace,
to our damp, cramped
earthy place
among all
the shivering sheep.

And now, after all,
there he lies,
fast asleep.
~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels

[The Incarnation is like] a wave of the sea which, 
rushing up on the flat beach, 
runs out, even thinner and more transparent, 
and does not return to its source but sinks into the sand and disappears.
~Hans Urs von Balthasar from Origen: Spirit and Fire

Perhaps it is the mystery of the thing that brings us back,
again and again, to read the story of 
how God came down and disappeared into us.

How can this be?
God appearing on earth first to animals,
then the most humble of humans.

How can He be?
Through the will of the Father and the breath of the Spirit,
the Son was, and is and yet to be.

O great mystery beyond all understanding.

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 wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord lying in their Manger!
Blessed is the Virgin
whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!

Still Life by Zurbaran in the Norton-Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA

The composer Morten Lauridsen, is a Washington state native who was born only a few miles from where my mother grew up in the wheat fields of the Palouse, and now lives in retirement in the San Juan Islands.  He wrote about his inspiration, wanting to compose something that honored the words as much as the Still Life painted by Zurbaran (above) honored the Virgin Mary.

In Lauridsen’s own words:

“Zurbarán (1598-1664) is the painter of “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose.” The objects in this work are symbolic offerings to the Virgin Mary. Her love, purity and chastity are signified by the rose and the cup of water. The lemons are an Easter fruit that, along with the oranges with blossoms, indicate renewed life. The table is a symbolic altar. The objects on it are set off in sharp contrast to the dark, blurred backdrop and radiate with clarity and luminosity against the shadows.

In composing music to these inspirational words about Christ’s birth and the veneration of the Virgin Mary, I sought to impart, as Zurbarán did before me, a transforming spiritual experience within what I call “a quiet song of profound inner joy.” I wanted this piece to resonate immediately and deeply into the core of the listener, to illumine through sound.

The most challenging part of this piece for me was the second line of text having to do with the Virgin Mary. She above all was chosen to bear the Christ child and then she endured the horror and sorrow of his death on the cross. How can her significance and suffering be portrayed musically?

After exploring several paths, I decided to depict this by a single note. On the word “Virgo,” the altos sing a dissonant appoggiatura G-sharp. It’s the only tone in the entire work that is foreign to the main key of D. That note stands out against a consonant backdrop as if a sonic light has suddenly been focused upon it, edifying its meaning. It is the most important note in the piece.

A scholarly essay about Lauridsen’s composition is here.

Another version by a different composer:

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An Advent Threshold: A Golden Pin in the Folds of Time

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Beyond the brimming ages Gabriel waits,
his foremost message burning on his breath.
Through time men slide, creeping through the gates
of birth and out again the doors of death.

He sees kings rise and kingdoms fall to dust;
he sees unnumbered souls unfleshed; to some
he gives slight hints, but the full knowledge must
wait, for his best words are not for them.

Then at last, coming from afar
he sees, gleaming like a golden pin
in time’s folds, Mary, rising like a star
above the fretted seas of what had been;

bright hinge on which the gate of Heaven creaks,
to her he turns, inclines himself, and speaks.
~J.C.Sharl “Annunciation”

Be patient and without bitterness,
realizing the least we can do
is make coming into existence
no more difficult for Him
than the earth does for spring when it wants to come.
~Rainier Marie Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

And in all of this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last light off the black West wind went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”

Kings and kingdoms come and go, reduced to dust over time.

So the Word waited, like the earth waits for spring,
for a golden point of light to overwhelm the dark.

She says “let it be”, not “no, not me, not now.”

Transformed, simply by accepting Him:
a simple, but oh so difficult faith,
like a tender shoot breaking through
the crust of frozen earth
seeking the Sun, needing now to bloom.

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

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An Advent Threshold: The Beginning Shall Remind Us of the End

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…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

Today is my mother’s birthday,
but she’s not here to celebrate
by opening a flowery card
or looking calmly out a window.

If my mother were alive,
she’d be 114 years old,
and I am guessing neither of us
would be enjoying her birthday very much.

Mother, I would love to see you again
to take you shopping or to sit
in your sunny apartment with a pot of tea,
but it wouldn’t be the same at 114.

And I’m no prize either,
almost 20 years older than the last time
you saw me sitting by your deathbed.
Some days, I look worse than yesterday’s oatmeal.

It must have been frigid that morning
in the hour just before dawn
on your first December 1st
at the family farm a hundred miles north of Toronto.

Happy Birthday, anyway. Happy Birthday to you.
~Billy Collins from “December 1”

My mom meeting grandson Noah shortly before her death

December 1st is not my mother’s birthday but it was her death day seventeen years ago.

Yet it felt a bit like a birth.

The call came from the care center about 5:30 AM on the Monday after Thanksgiving on a frozen morning: the nurse gently said her breathing had changed, it wasn’t long now until she’d be gone.

My daughter and I quickly dressed and went out into bleak darkness to make the ten minute drive to where she lay. Mom had been wearily existing since a femur fracture 9 months earlier on a cruel April 1st morning. Everything changed for her at 87 years of being active. It was the beginning of the end for her, unable to care for herself at home.

Those nine months had been her gestation time to cross the threshold into a new life. It occurred to me as I drove – she was about to be born into her long-awaited yet long-feared transition to death.

Her room was darkened except for the multicolored lights on the table top artificial Christmas tree I had brought her a few days earlier. It cast colorful shadows onto the walls and the white bedspread on her hospital bed. It even made her look like she had color to her cheeks where there actually was none.

There was no one home.

She had already left, flown away while we drove the few miles to come to her. There was no reaching her now. Her skin was cooling, her face hollowed by the lack of effort, her body stilled and sunken.

I could not weep at that point – it was her liminal time to leave us behind. She was so very tired, so very weary, so very ready for heaven. And I, weary too, felt much like yesterday’s oatmeal, something she actually very much loved during her life, cooking up a big batch a couple times a week, enough to last several days.

I knew, seeing what was left of her there in that bed, Mom was no longer settling for yesterday’s oatmeal and no longer homeless. I knew she now was present for an everlasting feast, would never suffer insomnia again, would no longer be fearful of dying, her cheeks forever full of color.

I knew she had a new beginning: the glory of rebirth thanks to her Savior who had gently taken her by the hand through heaven’s gate to a land where joy would never end.

Happy Birthday, Mom. Happy December 1st Birthday to you.

I’ll fly away, oh glory
I’ll fly away in the morning
When I die hallelujah by and by
I’ll fly away

God makes us happy as only children can be happy.
God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be –
in our sin, in our suffering and death.
We are no longer alone;
God is with us.
We are no longer homeless;
a bit of the eternal home itself has moved unto us. 
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between heaven and earth

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

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
She hath no questions, she hath no replies,
Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth
Of all that irked her from the hour of birth;
With stillness that is almost Paradise.
Darkness more clear than noon-day holdeth her,
Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of Eternity
Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
And when she wakes she will not think it long.
~Christina Rossetti “Rest”

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An Advent Threshold: Midwifing the Word

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It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.
~Denise Levertov “The Mystery of the Incarnation”

In the Christmas story, God … takes the risk of incarnation. The flesh God chooses is not that of a warrior but of a vulnerable baby, a claim that brought me tears of wonderment when I was young. But my adult knowledge of that infant’s fate — a fate shared by so many who have devoted their lives to love, truth, and justice — brings tears of anger and grief, along with a primal fear of what might happen if I followed suit.

…I know I’m called to share in the risk of incarnation. Amid the world’s dangers, I’m asked to embody my values and beliefs, my identity and integrity, to allow good words to take flesh in me. Constrained by fear, I often fall short — yet I still aspire to incarnate words of life, however imperfectly.

What good words wait to be born in us, and how can we love one another in ways that midwife their incarnation?
~Parker Palmer from “The Risk of Incarnation”

I, like you, am entrusted to care for the Word in its earthly incarnation: born into impoverished, humble, and homeless circumstances, He has no where to dwell in this world except within me and within you.

And that is no small price for Him to pay, as my human heart can be inhospitable, hardened, cold and cracked.

I, like you, am capable of the worst our kind can do.

So it is up to me to embody the Word in what I say and do, even if it means being rejected just as He was rejected, knowing that is the risk I must take.

For me, it feels as vulnerable as if I were a bare tree standing naked in the chill winter wind. I’m fearful I could break or topple over.
Yet if I’m created to welcome, harbor and spread the incarnated Word, I must reach my roots deep, stand tall and find others who will stand alongside me.

This Advent, Iet us midwife the Word here on earth, delivering it over the threshold from heaven, straight to receptive, warm, and loving hearts.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between heaven and earth

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


Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love.
~George Herbert “The Call”

1.Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

2.King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

3.At his feet the six-winged seraph,
Cherubim, with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

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An Advent Threshold: A World Waiting

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Like Mary, we have no way of knowing…
We can ask for courage, however,
and trust that God has not led us into this new land
only to abandon us there.
~Kathleen Norris from God With Us

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
~Denise Levertov from  “Annunciation”

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.
~Madeleine L’Engle “After Annunciation” from A Cry Like A Bell

Dawn again and the birds of oblivion sing
of all hungers

Each day I wake
to a pillar of light kindling the room
into being once more

A crease in the rug, someone’s future stumble

The pale melt of bedclothes at my thighs

Mine is not the face of peace but of the found-out

The lamp’s diminutive thorn
of light sharpens at my bedside—
a whole world waiting

Again
for my yes

~Molly Spencer “Invitatory”

The Annunciation by Henry Tanner, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Mary’s response to this overwhelming event is a model for us all when God is leading us over a threshold into the unexpected and unknown.

Even though she is prepared, having studied God’s Word and His promise to His people — she doesn’t understand: “How can this be?”

Articulating it in the song she sings as a response, she gives up her so-carefully-planned-out life to give life to God within her.

Her resilience reverberates through the ages and to each one of us in our own multi-faceted and overwhelming troubles:
May it be to me as you say.

May it be.
Your plans, Your purpose, Your promise – all embodied within me.

Let it be, even if I don’t understand how it can be.

Even if it pierces my soul as with a sword so that I leak out to empty;
you are there to heal the bleeding wound by filling it with infinite light.

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

The angel Gabriel from heaven came
His wings as drifted snow his eyes as flame
“All hail” said he “thou lowly maiden
Mary, Most highly favored lady,” Gloria!

“For known a blessed mother thou shalt be,
All generations laud and honor thee,
Thy Son shall be Emanuel, by seers foretold
Most highly favored lady,” Gloria!

Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head
“To me be as it pleaseth God,” she said,
“My soul shall laud and magnify his holy name.”
Most highly favored lady. Gloria!

Of her, Emmanuel, the Christ was born
In Bethlehem, all on a Christmas morn
And Christian folk throughout the world will ever say:
“Most highly favored lady,” Gloria

An Advent Threshold: Come and See the Lamb

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The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 
This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 

 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 

And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 

And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
John 1: 29-34

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
~William Blake from “The Tyger”

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild:
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee
~William Blake “Little Lamb”

Agnus Dei from The Collection from Museo Del Prado

He is the Lion and the Lamb.
Despite his high claims, he is never pompous;
you never see him standing on his own dignity.
Despite being absolutely approachable to the weakest and broken,
he is completely fearless before the corrupt and powerful.
He has tenderness without weakness.
Strength without harshness.
Humility without the slightest lack of confidence.
Unhesitating authority with a complete lack of self-absorption. Holiness and unending convictions
without any shortage of approachability.
Power without insensitivity.
~Tim Keller from Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

John the Baptist is the only one who actually calls Jesus a Lamb to His Face. It seems a curious label to put on the Messiah expected to bring the Kingdom of God to His people with great power, might, and fanfare.
A lamb?
A defenseless helpless lamb?
How could God send a mere lamb?

The label is particularly apt for this Messiah. This mere lamb is marked for slaughter, destined for sacrifice. The Jewish people well understood the age-old directive to find a “year old male lamb without defect”, the perfect lamb, as only that blood would demarcate their Passover rescue in Egypt. 

There would be no mistaking what “Lamb of God” implied to the Jews who knew their Passover history.

But John is even more revolutionary than simply calling Jesus a Lamb of God. He is not talking about a sacrifice meant only for his own people. He is talking about a sacrifice on behalf of the world…
for the Jews, for the Gentiles, for the enemies of the Jews, for the millions of people as yet unborn. His words cannot be clearer, ringing through to the unsettled times and people of today.

The perfect lamb is sacrificed, his blood spilling over the hands of the slaughterers, and washing them clean.

No mere lamb forgives the holder of the knife. 
Only would the Lamb of God.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year or so. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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

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An Advent Threshold: Nothing But Light

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(Jesus said) I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
Luke 12:49

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning from “Aurora Leigh”

It is difficult to undo our own damage…
It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind.
The very holy mountains are keeping mum.
We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it;
we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. 
~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk

Nine Kinds of Blindness
1. The one where your eyes do not work to see anything.
2. The one where your eyes do not work to see everything.
3. The one where your eyes work, but you cannot see what you have never seen before.
4. The one where your eyes work but you cannot see what is inconvenient.
5. The one where your eyes work but someone is keeping you from using them.
6. The one where your eyes work but you are angry.
7. The one where your eyes work but you are afraid.
8. The one where your eyes work but there is no light.
9. The one where your eyes work but there is nothing but light.
~Paul Pastor “Nine Kinds of Blindness” from  Bower Lodge

I need to turn aside and look, blinded as I am,
to see, as if for the first and last time,
the kindled fire that illuminates even the darkest day
and never dies away.

We are invited, by no less than God Himself,
through the original burning bush that is never consumed
to shed our shoes, to walk barefoot and vulnerable,
and approach the bright and burning dawn,
even when it is the darkest midnight,
even when it is a babe in a manger who kindles a fire in each one of us.

Only then, only then
can I say:
“Here I am! Consume me!”

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

Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire
that never dies away,
that never dies away.
Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire
that never dies away,
that never dies away.
~Taize

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The Advent Threshold: Lifting of a Latch

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Even in the darkness where I sit
And huddle in the midst of misery
I can remember freedom, but forget
That every lock must answer to a key,
That each dark clasp, sharp and intimate,
Must find a counter-clasp to meet its guard.
Particular, exact and intricate,
The clutch and catch that meshes with its ward.
I cry out for the key I threw away
That turned and over turned with certain touch
And with the lovely lifting of a latch
Opened my darkness to the light of day.
O come again, come quickly, set me free,
Cut to the quick to fit, the master key.
~Malcolm Guite “O Clavis” from Sounding the Seasons

And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David.
He shall open, and none shall shut;
and he shall shut, and none shall open…
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
Isaiah 22:22 and 42:7

Some doors in our lives appear forever closed and locked. 
No key, no admittance, no way in, no way out. 
A locked door leaves few choices until the key is offered to us.

We now must make a choice, even if the choice is to do nothing.

Do we drop the key and stay put where things are at least familiar?
Do we knock and politely wait for the door to be answered?
Do we simply wait for the moment it happens to open, take a peek and decide whether or not to enter?
Or do we boldly put the key in and walk through?

Our choice is as plain as the key resting in our trembling hand.
Once we approach, drawn to the mystery,
we find the door is already standing open with an invitation.

Fear not.
For unto us a child is born, a son is given.

He is the threshold between two worlds, between the darkness and the light, a liminal love allowing us to hold the key.

From the fourth stanza of O Come, O Come Emmanuel:

O come, thou Key of David, come and open wide our heav’nly home; make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.

AI image created for this post

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

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A Wordless Song

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Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away. . . O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless;
the singing will never be done. 
~Siegried Sassoon “Everyone Sang”

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
~Emily Dickinson “Hope is the thing with feathers”

When it feels like the world is rent in two,
and the gulf into which we topple
too wide and dark to climb without help,
we can look to the sky
and see the birds’ stitching and hear their wordless singing,
the careful caring line of connection
pulling us out of a hopeless hole,
startled and grateful
to be made whole.
Hope borne on feathered wings:
may we fly threaded and knitted to one another, singing.

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The Wildness and Wet

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foggydrops14
foggydrops20

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness?  Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Inversnaid”

octdandy3

In my anguish at the chaos in the world,
let me remember,
when I look closely,
through the rain,
even the weeds,
the unruly, unholy weeds
are connected
in this wilderness.

There is order here
even if I can’t feel it now.
Let us weeds be left.
We are meant to be.

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