… Oh the heretics! Not to remember Bethlehem, or the star as bright as a sun, or the child born on a bed of straw! To know only of the dissolving Now!
Still they drowsed on – citizens of the pure, the physical world, they loomed in the dark: powerful of body, peaceful of mind, innocent of history.
Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas! And you are no heretics, but a miracle, immaculate still as when you thundered forth on the morning of creation! ~Mary Oliver from Goodness and Light
Christmas hath a darkness Brighter than the blazing noon, Christmas hath a chillness Warmer than the heat of June, Christmas hath a beauty Lovelier than the world can show: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low.
Earth, strike up your music, Birds that sing and bells that ring; Heaven hath answering music For all Angels soon to sing: Earth, put on your whitest Bridal robe of spotless snow: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low. ~Christina Rossetti “Christmas Eve”
…the deepest darkness is the place where God comes to us. In the womb, in the night, in the dreaming; when we are lost, when our world has come undone, when we cannot see the next step on the path; in all the darkness that attends our life, whether hopeful darkness or horrendous, God meets us. God’s first priority is not to do away with the dark but to be present to us in it. ~Jan Richardson
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12
God crossed the threshold, bringing Light down low into our darkness.
God is with us, God is for us. Let’s open the door for Him.
Traditional Austrian Lullaby lyrics Still, still, still, One can hear the falling snow. For all is hushed, The world is sleeping, Holy Star its vigil keeping. Still, still, still, One can hear the falling snow.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, ‘Tis the eve of our Saviour’s birth. The night is peaceful all around you, Close your eyes, Let sleep surround you. Sleep, sleep, sleep, ‘Tis the eve of our Saviour’s birth.
Dream, dream, dream, Of the joyous day to come. While guardian angels without number, Watch you as you sweetly slumber. Dream, dream, dream, Of the joyous day to come.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
…Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you… Ezekiel 2:6
Christ … is a thorn in the brain. Christ is God crying I am here, and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you, but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you, here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God. To walk through the fog of God toward the clarity of Christ is difficult because of how unlovely, how ungodly that clarity often turns out to be. ~Christian Wiman from Image Journal essay “Varieties of Quiet”
I see his blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies. I see his face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice—and carven by his power Rocks are his written words. All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree. ~Joseph Mary Plunkett “I See His Blood Upon the Rose”
Gardener/author Alphonse Karr in the mid-19th century wrote that even though most people grumble about roses having thorns, he was grateful that thorns have roses.
After all, there was a time when thorns were not part of our world, when we knew nothing of pain, suffering and death. In desiring more than we were already generously given, we have received more than we bargained for.
We reel under the thorns we have chosen to wander through – indeed we voluntarily elect the “thorns” of the far left and far right and suffer the consequences of our choices. Every day there is more bloodletting and battling and bullying, barricading us from all that is sweet and good and precious.
The unlovely, ungodly thorns tear us up, bloody us, make us cry out in pain and grief, deepen our fear that we may never overcome them.
Yet even the most brutal crown of thorns did not stop the loving sacrifice, can never thwart the sweetness of redemption, will not spoil the goodness, nor destroy the promise of salvation to come.
The Lord, our Rose, lightens every load.
“the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made” ~from the Nicene Creed
1. Maria walks amid the thorn, Kyrie eleison. Maria walks amid the thorn, Which seven years no leaf has born. Jesus and Maria.
2. What ‘neath her heart doth Mary bear? Kyrie eleison. A little child doth Mary bear, Beneath her heart He nestles there. Jesus and Maria.
3. And as the two are passing near, Kyrie eleison, Lo! roses on the thorns appear, Lo! roses on the thorns appear. Jesus and Maria.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere; True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us, And lightens every load. ~from “Lo! How a Rose”
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
“Thin places,” the Celts call this space, Both seen and unseen, Where the door between the world And the next is cracked open for a moment And the light is not all on the other side. God shaped space. Holy. ~Sharlande Sledge
What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in your hand Ah, what then? ~Samuel Coleridge “What if you slept”
Advent does not train us to look away from suffering. No, it gives us the strength with which to face it. A cup of water. A stone on which to rest. A star to guide us. And the essential hope to know that somewhere, a door is opening.
Advent is how we survive, for to live in Advent is to root ourselves in the essential gravity of things, to know that love and goodness are always stronger than whatever seeks to defeat them. We train our eyes on the small and know that it matters. A flower. A kind word. A child in the manger. That is the way that God breaks through the void. ~Stephanie Saldaña“Living on Manger Street”
I know for a while again, the health of self-forgetfulness, looking out at the sky through a notch in the valley side, the black woods wintry on the hills, small clouds at sunset passing across. And I know that this is one of the thresholds between Earth and Heaven, from which I may even step forth from myself and be free. ~ Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 2000
The partition thins between this world and the world to come, or the next or the other world. On the other side of the partition the dead are living. As one grows older some of the dead grow more alive, more essentially themselves. One loves them more. As the next world grows more distinct, this one becomes, not more vague, but more strange. ~Wendell Berry “New Poems”
photo by Nate Gibson
“Thin places,” the Celts call this space, Both seen and unseen, Where the door between the world And the next is cracked open for a moment And the light is not all on the other side. God shaped space. Holy. ~Sharlande Sledge
Ah, what then?
Home is not nearly big enough for heaven to dwell. I must content myself with this visit to the thin edge, peering through the open door, and waiting until invited to come inside.
My 2025 Advent theme: On the threshold between day and night
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord— with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light. Zechariah 14:6-7
So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. ~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
In the stillness of a church where candles glow, In the softness of a fall of fresh white snow, In the brightness of the stars hat shine this night, In the calmness of a pool of healing light, In the clearness of a choir that softly sings, In the oneness of a hush of angels’ wings, In the mildness of a night by stable bare, In the quietness of a lull near cradle fair, There’s a patience as we wait for a new morn, And the presence of a child soon to be born. ~Sally Beamish “In the Stillness”
Gloomy night embraced the place Where the Noble Infant lay; The Babe looked up and showed his face, In spite of darkness, it was day. It was thy day, Sweet! and did rise Not from the east, but from thine eyes.
Welcome, all wonders in one sight! Eternity shut in a span; Summer in winter; day in night; Heaven in earth, and God in man. Great little one, whose all-embracing birth Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth. ~Richard Crashawfrom “In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord”
The pines look black in the half- light of dawn. Stillness…
While we slept an inch of new snow simplified the field. Today of all days the sun will shine no more than is strictly necessary.
At the village church last night the boys – shepherds and wisemen – pressed close to the manger in obedience, wishing only for time to pass; but the girl dressed as Mary trembled as she leaned over the pungent hay, and like the mother of Christ wondered why she had been chosen.
After the pageant, a ruckus of cards, presents, and homemade Christmas sweets. A few of us stayed to clear the bright scraps and ribbons from the pews, and lift the pulpit back in place.
When I opened the hundred-year-old Bible to Luke’s account of the Epiphany black dust from the binding rubbed off on my hands, and on the altar cloth. ~Jane Kenyon “At the Winter Solstice”
Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch…
There is not a guarantee in the world. Oh your needs are guaranteed; your needs are absolutely guaranteed by the most stringent of warranties, in the plainest, truest words: knock; seek; ask. But you must read the fine print. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” That’s the catch.
I think that the dying pray at the last not “please,” but “thank you,” as a guest thanks his host at the door… The universe was not made in jest but in solemn, incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. ~Annie Dillard “Winter Solstice” from The Abundance
It was a time like this, War & tumult of war, a horror in the air. Hungry yawned the abyss- and yet there came the star and the child most wonderfully there.
It was time like this of fear & lust for power, license & greed and blight- and yet the Prince of bliss came into the darkest hour in quiet & silent light.
And in a time like this how celebrate his birth when all things fall apart? Ah! Wonderful it is with no room on the earth the stable is our heart. ~Madeleine L’Engle “Into the Darkest Hour”
On this winter solstice, my prayer is to remember this day turns the world away from its descent into darkness and back toward the Light.
Even when everything is falling apart, the Light guides our way into the path of peace.
And may the Word of the Lord spill onto our hands and into the opened stable of our hearts.
My 2025 Advent theme: On the threshold between day and night
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord— with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light. Zechariah 14:6-7
So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. ~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
Lyrics:
Sure on this shining night Of star made shadows round, Kindness must watch for me This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north. All is healed, all is health. High summer holds the earth. Hearts all whole. Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone Of shadows on the stars. ~James Agee
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
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
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Bethlehem in Germany, Glitter on the sloping roofs, Breadcrumbs on the windowsills, Candles in the Christmas trees, Hearths with pairs of empty shoes: Panels of Nativity Open paper scenes where doors Open into other scenes, Some recounted, some foretold. Blizzard-sprinkled flakes of gold Gleam from small interiors, Picture-boxes in the stars Open up like cupboard doors In a cabinet Jesus built.
Leaning from the cliff of heaven, Indicating whom he weeps for, Joseph lifts his lamp above The infant like a candle-crown. Let my fingers touch the silence Where the infant’s father cries. Give me entrance to the village From my childhood where the doorways Open pictures in the skies. But when all the doors are open, No one sees that I’ve returned. When I cry to be admitted, No one answers, no one comes. Clinging to my fingers only Pain, like glitter bits adhering, When I touch the shining crumbs. ~Gjertrud Schnackenberg,from “Advent Calendar” from Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-1992.
He will come like last leaf’s fall. One night when the November wind has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth wakes choking on the mould, the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost. One morning when the shrinking earth opens on mist, to find itself arrested in the net of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark. One evening when the bursting red December sun draws up the sheet and penny-masks its eye to yield the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come, will come like crying in the night, like blood, like breaking, as the earth writhes to toss him free. He will come like child. ~Rowan Williams “Advent Calendar”
Who has not considered Mary And who her praise would dim, But what of humble Joseph Is there no song for him?
If Joseph had not driven Straight nails through honest wood If Joseph had not cherished His Mary as he should;
If Joseph had not proved him A sire both kind and wise Would he have drawn with favor The Child’s all-probing eyes?
Would Christ have prayed, ‘Our Father’ Or cried that name in death Unless he first had honored Joseph of Nazareth ? ~Luci Shaw “Joseph The Carpenter”
The hero of the story this season is the man in the background of each creche, the old master Nativity paintings, and the Advent Calendar doors that open each day.
He is the adoptive father who does the right thing rather than what he has legal right to do, who listens to his dreams and believes, who leads the way over dusty roads to be counted, who searches valiantly for a suitable place to stay, who does whatever he can to assist her labor, who stands tall over a vulnerable mother and infant while the poor and curious pour out of the hills, the wise and foreign appear bringing gifts, who takes his family to safety when the innocents are slaughtered.
He is only a carpenter, not born for heroics, but strong and obedient, stepping up when called.
He is a humble man teaching his son a living, until his son leaves to save the dying.
This man Joseph is the Chosen father, the best Abba a God could possibly hope for.
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
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
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
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
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 Rilkefrom 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
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples,and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.
One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ).He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” John 1:35-51
I never knew what was going on.
He would say, “Let’s go,” and we would follow. “Follow” was his word.
And we would. Fools we were to let that take us all that way. Why we did to this day
I don’t know. Look how it ended. Look what it became. But what did we have
to stay for? Nothing. There wasn’t much work. Nothing much to do. There were no
stories left. Bread. Fish. So we ended up with more bread and fish. But we did find
stories and stories. Well, what else is there? I never did much along the way. Look it up…
I will say, though, that it was his words. Words!
Imagine. Words had never done what his did. I’d listen, and I wasn’t much of a listener. Then
later I would try to make sense of them. I couldn’t. But I could feel them. And maybe that was it, how
they got inside you and made you wonder and wrinkle. They got in my brain’s garden and made it seem like
the roots were above ground and all the flowers and vegetables, all the nourishing, were now below…
See? See how hard it is to explain this stuff? You just started seeing everything with a
new mind. You began to be drawn to a whole new world, and it was a world.
You might say, okay, whatever, and yet those words did become flesh, my flesh. And my flesh, my body, held
the kingdom of God, and if it’s a place that’s a place for children, then most of what I know really doesn’t matter.
Labor doesn’t, and money, and reason, and, well, you go make a list. He’d get me so confused. And then we’d
head off worrying about how we would eat and where we’d sleep. Our feet were filthy. My God, we were always
filthy. We stank. And then he’d go and point at birds or stalks of grain, even stop and have us kneel before a flower,
and then he’d smile. That haunts me still. That smile. And then he died. He brought out hate, not love. He had
a terrifying sense of justice. Nothing he said or did was impossible. Maybe that was it. It was all possible. ~Jack Ridl from “Bartholomew: Disciple”
What are you seeking? What are you looking for in your life?
Jesus asks the new disciples because He needs to know whether they are expecting a wise rabbi/teacher, or a prophesied Messiah come to change the world, or a mighty king who will liberate them from political oppression.
No matter what our expectation is, Jesus asks that we come to see what he is doing, following him to witness what will happen as he speaks, allowing his words to become our new flesh and skin.
He takes us to the threshold of heaven and throws the gate wide open. Nothing he says or does is impossible.
He shows us what is possible simply by asking us what we hope for.
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
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
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”
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Barnstorming 