Tag: Bible

An Advent Threshold: A Wall Becomes a Gate

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What seemed to be the end proved to be the beginning…
Suddenly a wall becomes a gate.
~Henri Nouwen from Gracias! A Letter of Consolation

Heaven in Ordinary~
Because high heaven made itself so low
That I might glimpse it through a stable door,
Or hear it bless me through a hammer blow,
And call me through the voices of the poor,
Unbidden now, its hidden light breaks through
Amidst the clutter of the every day,
Illuminating things I thought I knew,
Whose dark glass brightens, even as I pray.
Then this world’s walls no longer stay my eyes,
A veil is lifted likewise from my heart,
The moment holds me in its strange surprise,
The gates of paradise are drawn apart,
I see his tree, with blossom on its bough,
And nothing can be ordinary now.
~Malcolm Guite from “After Prayer”

As Christians we do not believe in walls,
but that life lies open before us;
that the gate can always be unbarred;
that there is no final abandonment or desertion.
We do not believe that it can ever be “too late.”

We believe that the world is full of doors that can be opened. Between us and others.
Between the people around us.
Between today and tomorrow.
Our own inner person can be unlocked too:
even within our own selves,
there are doors that need to be opened.

If we open them and enter,
we can unlock ourselves, too,
and so await whatever is coming to free us and make us whole.
~ Jörg Zink from “Doors to the Feast”

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
~T.S. Eliot from “Little Gidding” The Four Quartets


We stand on the threshold outside the gate,
incapable of opening it ourselves,
watching as God Himself throws it open wide. 

We can choose to enter this unknown unremembered gate
into the endless length of days,
or we choose to remain on the outside,
lingering in the familiar confines of what we know,
though unless we step through at His invitation,
eventually it will end, and we with it.

There we shall rest and we shall see;
we shall see and we shall love;
we shall love and we shall praise.
Behold what shall be in the end and shall not end.
~Augustine of Hippo

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

TEXT
O salutaris hostia,
Quæ cæli pandis ostium:
Bella premunt hostilia,
Da robur, fer auxilium.
Uni trinoque Domino,
Sit sempiterna gloria,
Qui vitam sine termino,
Nobis donet in patria. Amen.

TRANSLATION
O saving victim,
Who opens the gate of heaven:
Hostile wars press upon us,
Give strength, bring aid.
To the one and triune Lord,
May there be eternal glory,
Who gives us life without end,
In our heavenly homeland. Amen.

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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: 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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An Advent Threshold: A Power from on High

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The worst isn’t the last thing about the world.
It’s the next to the last thing.
The last thing is the best.
It’s the power from on high that comes down into the world,
that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world
like a hidden spring.
Can you believe it?
Yes.
You are terribly loved and forgiven.
Yes.
You are healed.
All is well.
~Frederick Buechner from The Final Beast

…the point is that God is with us, not beyond us, in suffering. Christ’s suffering shatters the iron walls
around individual human suffering,
that Christ’s compassion
makes extreme human compassion
—to the point of death even—possible.
Human love can reach right into death,
then, but not if it is merely human love.
~Christian Wiman from My Bright Abyss

Ah, good Lord, how could all things be well, because of the great
harm which has come through sin to your creatures?
And so our good Lord answered
all the questions and doubts which I could raise,
saying most comfortingly:

I make all things well,
and I can make all things well,
and I shall make all things well,
and I will make all things well;

and you will see for yourself
that every kind of thing will be well.

…And in these words God wishes us
to be enclosed in rest and peace
~Julian of Norwich from Revelations of Divine Love (1393)

To be terribly loved and forgiven heals.
To know the suffering and sadness in this world
is not the last thing, only the next to last thing.
To understand that human compassion and love
is made possible because Christ’s power from on high
is not merely human.
To believe all will be made well as the last thing.
If all is not well, we’re not yet at the end of our story…

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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

Come and See: Make Straight the Way

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And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”  He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 

And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?”
And he answered, “No.” 
 So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 
 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 

John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
John 1:19-28

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When Light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye —

A Moment — We Uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darknesses —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.
~Emily Dickinson

I admit that I’ve been stumbling about in the dark,
bearing the bruises and scrapes of
random collisions with objects hidden in the night.

My eyes must slowly adjust to such bare illumination,
as the Lamp sometimes is carried away.
I must feel my way along the road of life.

I know there are fellow darkness travelers
who also have lost their way and their Light,
giving what they can and sometimes more.

And so, blinded as we each are,
we run forehead-first into the Tree
which has always been there and always will be.

Because of who we are and Who loves us,
we, now free and forgiven,
follow a darkened road guaranteed straight, all the way Home.

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

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A Day to Be Still

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There is a basic lesson that all young horses must learn (and a fewer older horses must relearn) on our farm. It is to stand still when asked and move only when asked. This does not come naturally to a young horse–they tend to be impatient and fidgety and fretful and full of energy. If they are hungry, they want food now and if they are bored, they want something different to do and if they are fearful, they want to be outta there.

Teaching a horse to be still is actually a greater lesson in persistence and consistency for the human handler, which means I don’t always do well in teaching this to my horses and they (and I) lapse frequently–wiggly pushy horses and a weary frustrated handler. It means correcting each little transgression the horse makes, asking them to move back to their original spot, even if there is hay waiting just beyond their nose, asking them to focus not on their hunger, their boredom, their fear, but asking them to focus only on me and where they are in relationship to me. It means they must forget about themselves and recognize something outside of themselves that is in control–even if I move away from them to do other things.

The greatest trust is when I can stand a horse in one spot, ask them to be still, walk away from them, briefly go out of sight, and return to find them as I left them, still focused on me even when I was not visible.

I was reminded of this during our pastor’s sermon on the book of Exodus when he preached on the moments before Moses parted the Red Sea, allowing the Hebrews an escape route away from Pharoah and the Egyptian chariots and soldiers. In those moments beforehand, the Hebrews were pressed up against the Sea with the Egyptians bearing down on them and they lamented they should never have left Egypt in the first place, and that generations of bondage in slavery would have been preferable to dying in the desert at the hands of the soldiers or drowning in the Sea.

Moses told them to “be still”. Or as our pastor said, he told them to “shut up”. Stay focused, be obedient, trust in the Lord’s plan. And the next thing that happened was the Sea opened up. Then the Hebrews rejoiced in thanksgiving for their freedom.

Thanksgiving, as it has developed over the years from the first historical observance of a meal shared jointly between the Pilgrims and their patient and generous Native American hosts, is just such a moment to “be still and know” about the gifts from our God. Yet in our hurried and harried culture, Thanksgiving is about buying the best bargain turkey, creating the most memorable recipes, decorating in perfect Martha Stewart style, eating together in Norman Rockwell style extended family gatherings, watching football and parades on the biggest flat screen TV, while preparing for the mad dash out the door the next day to start the Christmas shopping season.

Instead of all that fol de rol –  be still.

Like my horses, I need correction when I start to agitate out of “hunger”–wanting to literally stuff myself full, or out of my boredom– seeking the latest in entertainment or satisfaction, or out of my fear–  feeling the threats that surround us all in the world today. I need to be reminded continually that my focus must be outside myself and my perceived needs, and to be still long enough to know God is with us even though we cannot see Him every moment.

I do not do well at this.

My horses learn much faster than I do. I am restless, rarely taking the time to be still and acknowledge God who continually watches, waiting for me to settle down and focus on Him.

May this Thanksgiving remind me of my need for God, and my gratitude for His patient persistence in moving me back into place when I wiggle and fret and stuff myself even when I’m really not hungry.

May I remember that to be still and know God is the greatest gift I can give and that I can receive.

And may His Stillness be with you today as well.

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Come and See: To Be Known

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Knowing God is more important than knowing about God.
~Karl Rahner

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, 
and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  

(John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 

 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 

No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
John 1:14-18

There is no peace
like the peace of those whose minds
are possessed with full assurance
that they have known God,
and God has known them…
~J.I. Packer from Knowing God

When our pastor preached recently on this passage from the Book of John, he explained that the Greek word ἀνακειμένον used for “at the Father’s side” is the same word John used later in his book as he ate supper with Jesus, reclining at the table with the other disciples.

John describes resting on Jesus’ chest or bosom, or on his heart.

This is how John helps us understand Jesus’ relationship with God the Father – Jesus rests on the Father’s heart – and that closeness is what brings us nearer to a knowledge of God.

To know God – indeed, resting on the Father’s chest – is why Jesus was sent, in the flesh, to our world.

We can rest there too as the Light overcomes the darkness.
We can listen for the living heartbeat of the Word.

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

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Come and See: The Light Shines in the Darkness

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He was with God in the beginning.
 Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made. 
 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 
The light shines in the darkness, 
and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:2-5

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heav’n:
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling,
but one equal light;
no noise nor silence,
but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes,
but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings,
but one equal eternity;
in the habitation of thy glory and dominion,
world without end.
Amen.
~John Donne – a prayer

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6

It seems impossible that God could be contained within the darkness of a womb.

The Creator, who made the heavens, went deep into His vast inner universe of atoms and sub-atomic particles. He hosted tiny cellular nuclei within His body, instead of the heaven-flung massive nebulae in distant galaxies.

And He chose to do this. Out of His love and goodness, He became Light in the darkest space of the human body, to be birthed to illuminate a world bent on destruction.

From radiance to ribosomes,
from cosmos to cytoplasm,
from galaxies to Golgi apparatus,
from moons to mitochondria,
from utter darkness to “let there be light.”

And there is Light.
God is there, coming from above and coming from within.

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

Lyrics:
Through love to light!
Oh, wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day!
From darkness and from sorrow of the night
To morning that comes singing o’er the sea.
Through love to light!
Through light, O God, to thee,
Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!

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Like You Don’t Belong Here

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For grace to be grace,
it must give us things we didn’t know we needed
and take us places where we didn’t know we didn’t want to go.

As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.
~Kathleen Norris from Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life

It happens in an instant.
My grandma used to say
someone is walking on your grave.

It’s that moment when your life
is suddenly strange to you
as someone else’s coat

you have slipped on at a party
by accident, and it is far
too big or too tight for you.

Your life feels awkward, ill
fitting. You remember why you
came into this kitchen, but you

feel you don’t belong here.
It scares you in a remote
numb way. You fear that you—

whatever you means, this mind,
this entity stuck into a name
like mercury dropped into water—

have lost the ability to enter your
self, a key that no longer works.
Perhaps you will be locked

out here forever peering in
at your body, if that self is really
what you are. If you are at all.
~Marge Piercy “Dislocation” from The Crooked Inheritance

This Self—Hispanic, Latin, blond, black,
olive-skinned, native and immigrant—
dispersed far and wide
was here with everyone, yesterday and again today;

I am large, I contain multitudes.
They will not manage to deny me or ignore me or declare me undocumented:
I am written in you, in all,
as all are in me…
~Luis Alberto Ambroggio from We Are All Whitman: #2:Song of/to/My/Your/Self

Each of us a work of art,
heaven-sent,
called to reflect
on our own creation,
placed in this world to
feel grace
when we stumble,
unsure where we are to go,
who we are meant to be,
as if we don’t really belong here,
a feeling of jamais vu
when the familiar becomes strange.

This is who we are:
called to act out that grace –
to praise goodness,
to protest evil,
to grapple with reality,
to respond to injustice,
to change the direction we’re heading
fearing who we become if we don’t .

A traditional Catalan Song from Pablo Casals, a symbol of peace and freedom worldwide

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Where Spirit Meets the Bone

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The mail truck goes down the coast
Carrying a single letter.
At the end of a long pier
The bored seagull lifts a leg now and then
And forgets to put it down.

There is a menace in the air
Of tragedies in the making.
Last night you thought you heard television
In the house next door.
You were sure it was some new
Horror they were reporting,
So you went out to find out.
Barefoot, wearing just shorts.
It was only the sea sounding weary
After so many lifetimes
Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere
And never getting anywhere.

This morning, it felt like Sunday.
The heavens did their part
By casting no shadow along the boardwalk
Or the row of vacant cottages,
Among them a small church
With a dozen gray tombstones huddled close
As if they, too, had the shivers.
~Charles Simic “Late September” from The Voice at 3:00 a.m.: Selected Late and New Poems 

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, 
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign 
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.
~Miller Williams “Compassion” from The Ways We Touch: Poems. 

Christians are called by God to be living
so sacrificially and beautifully that the people around us, 
who don’t believe what we believe,
will soon be unable to imagine the world without us.
~Pastor Tim Keller

As we walk this life of trouble and suffering,
this Jericho Road together,
we cannot pass by the brother, the sister, the child
who lies dying in the ditch.

We must stop and help.
We cannot turn away from others’ suffering.

By mere circumstances of our place of birth,
it could be you or me there
bleeding, beaten, abandoned
until Someone, journeying along that road,
comes looking for us.

He was sent to take our place,
as Substitution
so we can get up,
cared for, loved,
made whole again,
and walk Home.

Maranatha.

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