Category: Fear

The Courage to Fail

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All the art of living lies
in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.
~Henry Ellis

The trees are undressing, and fling in many places—
On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill—
Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;
A leaf each second so is flung at will,
Here, there, another and another, still and still.

A spider’s web has caught one while downcoming,
That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;
Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming
In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,
Trembles, as fearing such a fate for himself anon.
~Thomas Hardy “Last Week in October”

Watching a dry leaf twirl
in the wind, its stem still

tethered to the tree, I think
of how stubborn I’ve been,

refusing to let go of what was
never intended for me,

not knowing something better
was waiting if I’d let myself lift

into the gale, that the courage
to fail is life’s greatest gift.
~Beth Copeland “Late November” from I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart: Poems

The builder who first bridged Niagara’s gorge,
Before he swung his cable, shore to shore,   
Sent out across the gulf his venturing kite   
Bearing a slender cord for unseen hands   
To grasp upon the further cliff and draw
A greater cord, and then a greater yet;   
Till at the last across the chasm swung   
The cable then the mighty bridge in air!
So we may send our little timid thought  
Across the void, out to God’s reaching hands—
Send out our love and faith to thread the deep—
Thought after thought until the little cord
Has greatened to a chain no chance can break,
And we are anchored to the Infinite!
~Edwin Markham  “Anchored to the Infinite”

I feel like the only one who failed
to fall from the tree along with all the others,
caught in an invisible silken strand,
dangling suspended and helpless,
twisting and turning in the storms of winter.

I wish I had the faith to trust
in this slender thread
bridging the chasm between heaven and earth,
assured rescue will come as
others pass me by ~~
another and another, still and still.

So I remain suspended in the void,
anchored to God’s reaching hands.

I’ll never again be let go.

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A Snowdrift Baby Who is Mending Hearts

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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 Lea
Daddy 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-three 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 to drive to the hospital,
concerned about your stillness and my advanced age,
worried about being stranded on the farm far from town.
When a neighbor came by tractor 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.
Your heart 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 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 only God had provided a sign to go for help.

So you were saved by a providential storm sent from God
and we were dug out from a drift:
I celebrate whenever I hear your voice –
your students love you as their teacher and mentor,
you are a thread born to knit and mend hearts,
all because of the night God sent drifting snow.

My annual retelling of a most remarkable day::
Thirty-three years ago today, our daughter Lea 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.

Thanks to that blizzard, Lea is a school teacher, serves the youth ministry in her church, and will soon receive her Masters in School Counseling.

She is married to her true love Brian– he also is a 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.

The Lord wanted her in this world:
May she be bread and feed many with her life and her laughter
May she be thread and mend brokenness and knit hearts…

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When They Are No More…

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The snow is melting
and the village is flooded
     with children.
~Kobayashi Issa (translated by Robert Haas)

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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God is Not Dead, Nor Does He Sleep…

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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 Longfellow from 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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An Advent Threshold: For the Growing Grey

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Autumn
Was certainly not winter, scholars say,
When holy habitation broke the chill
Of hearth-felt separation, icy still,
The love of life in man that Christmas day.
Was autumn, rather, if seasons speak true;
When green retreats from sight’s still ling’ring gaze,
And creeping cold numbs sense in sundry ways,
While settling silence speaks of solitude.
Hope happens when conditions are as these; 
Comes finally lock-armed with death and sin,
When deep’ning dark demands its full display.
Then fallen nature driven to her knees
Flames russet, auburn, orange fierce from within,
And brush burns brighter for the growing grey.
~David Baird “Autumn”

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us.

We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.

The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Watch for the Light

The shepherds were sore afraid. So why aren’t we?

The scholars say Christ was most likely born in the autumn of the year ~ so fitting, as our reds and oranges fade fast to grey as we descend into this wintering world on the threshold of dying, crying out for resuscitation. 

Murderous frosts and falling snow have wilted down all that was flush with life and we become desperate for hope for renewal.

And so this babe has come like a refiner’s fire to lay claim to us and we feel the heat of His embrace – in the middle of the chill, in the middle of our dying – no matter what time of year.

He finds us in our liminal moment of transition.

Hope happens when conditions are as these…

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

1. Father, enthroned on high—―Holy, holy!
Ancient eternal Light—hear our prayer.

REFRAIN
Come, O Redeemer, come;
grant us mercy.
Come, O Redeemer, come;
grant us peace.

2. Lord, save us from the dark of our striving,
faithless, troubled hearts weighed down. REFRAIN

3. Look now upon our need; Lord, be with us.
Heal us and make us free from our sin. REFRAIN

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An Advent Threshold: Hushed in the Dark

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What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World.
It is Christ.
That is the comfort of it.
The challenge of it is that it has not come yet.
Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it.
In the meantime we are in the dark,
and the dark, God knows, is also in us.
We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us,
to liberate us from the dark.
Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises.
It is like the hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow which will turn the night to silver.
Soon.
But for the time being, our time, darkness is where we are. 
~Frederick Buechner from The Clown in the Belfry

Darkness is not where we will dwell forever.
We are hushed in fear and hungry for Light.

We are promised this in the Word:
“and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light…
Revelation 22:5.

Somewhere between the Word in the beginning
and the Word that becomes flesh
and the Word thriving in our hearts and hands,
there is the sacred silent Light of God come to earth.

This Advent becomes a threshold of quiet stillness,
as we stand poised to cross into the Light brought by His Word;
He is a flint struck to our wick in our eagerness to abolish the Darkness with the eternal glow of His illuminating Word.

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:

In winter’s house there’s a room
that’s pale and still as mist in a field
while outside in the street every gate’s shut firm,
every face as cold as steel.

In winter’s house there’s a bed
that is spread with frost and feathers,
that gleams in the half-light like rain
in a disused yard or a pearl in a choked-up stream.

In winter’s house there’s a child asleep
in a dream of light that grows out of the dark,
a flame you can hold in your hand
like a flower or a torch on the street. 

In winter’s house there’s a tale that’s told
of a great chandelier in a garden,
of fire that catches and travels for miles,
of all gates and windows wide open.

In winter’s house there’s a flame
being dreamt by a child in the night,
in the small quiet house at the turn in the lane
where the darkness gives way to light.
~Jane Draycott

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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: This Widening Flood of Stillness

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I know this happiness
is provisional:

the looming presences –
great suffering, great fear –

withdraw only
into peripheral vision:

but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:

this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:

this need to dance,
this need to kneel:

this mystery:
~Denise Levertov “Of Being” from The Stream and the Sapphire

December rains have arrived in torrents in the Pacific Northwest,
swept in with widespread regional floods and wind,
leaving a mess of sorrow and silt in its wake.

There is still much to be thankful for
despite the powerlessness,
pain of loss and effort of recovery.
December is a frequent reminder
of our fragility and need for shelter
from the storms of life.

Blown off course, swept away,
drenched to the marrow,
pining for the light lost until solstice,
we hunker down in place,
burrowing in for a dark wet winter.

It is coming,
this veil of tears.
It is coming,
these night winds blowing away
our shield and protection.
It is coming,
these rushing waters,
taking us nowhere we wish to go.
It is coming,
this new moon forgetting how to shine.

Even so.
Our Light arrived powered from within,
ignited and irrepressible,
fueled by an overflowing abundance
of gentle loving and tender mercies.

Love spills like a flood from His broken Incarnate Heart,
promising the world a rainbow of undeserved Grace.

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

Lyrics: Could’ve come like a mighty storm
with all the strength of a hurricane
You could’ve come like a forest fire
with the power of heaven in your flame

But you came like a winter snow
quiet and soft and slow
Falling from the sky in the night
to the earth below

Could’ve swept in like a tidal wave
or an ocean to ravish our hearts
You could have come through like a roaring flood
to wipe away the things we’ve scarred

No, your voice wasn’t in a bush burning
No, your voice wasn’t in a rushing wind
It was still, it was small, it was hidden
by Audrey Assad

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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: Waiting in Silence

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We have waited in silence
on your loving-kindness,
O God.
~Psalm 48:8

…it should be that of your inner self,
the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is of great worth in God’s sight.
~1 Peter 3:4

The Lord is in his holy temple;
    let all the earth be silent before him.
Habakkuk 2:20

Then hear now the silence
He comes in the silence
in silence he enters
the womb of the bearer
in silence he goes to
the realm of the shadows
redeeming and shriving
in silence he moves from
the grave cloths, the dark tomb
in silence he rises
ascends to the glory
leaving his promise
leaving his comfort
leaving his silence

So come now, Lord Jesus
Come in your silence
breaking our noising
laughter of panic
breaking this earth’s time
breaking us breaking us
quickly Lord Jesus
make no long tarrying

When will you come
and how will you come
and will we be ready
for silence
your silence
~Madeleine L’Engle “Ready for Silence”

When worries overwhelm and fretting becomes fearsome,
I need quieting.
When the noise of news headlines screams for my attention,
I seek quieting.
When there is sadness, conflict, tragedy, illness, estrangement,
I weep for quieting.
When too many balls are juggled at once, and the first one is dropped with three more in the air,
I long for quieting.
When the ache lasts too long, the tiredness lingers, the heart skips a beat, and one too many symptoms causes anxiety,
I pray for quieting.
When tempted and ready for surrender, forgetting my confidence, conviction, commitment and faith,
I am desperate for quieting.

So come now, Lord, to our human threshold,
clothed in our weakness,
to carry us back home.

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

Peace, peace, peace on earth
and good will to men
This is a time for joy
This is a time for love
Now let us all sing together
of peace, peace, peace on earth…

Lyrics by Daniel Kantor
Cold are the people, winter of life,
We tremble in shadows this cold endless night,
Frozen in the snow lie roses sleeping,
Flowers that will echo the sunrise,
Fire of hope is our only warmth,
Weary, it’s flame will be dying soon.

Voice in the distance, call in the night,
On wind you enfold us
You speak of the light,
Gentle on the ear you whisper softly,
Rumours of a dawn so embracing,
Breathless love awaits darkened souls,
Soon will we know of the morning.

Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright,
Round yon Virgin Mother and child,
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Spirit among us, shine like the star,
Your light that guides shepherds and kings from afar,
Shimmer in the sky so empty, lonely,
Rising in the warmth of your Son’s love,
Star unknowing of night and day,
Spirit we wait for your loving Son.

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