O God, early in the morning I cry to you. Help me to pray And to concentrate my thoughts on you; I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness, But with you there is light; I am lonely, but you do not leave me; I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help; I am restless, but with you there is peace. In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways, But you know the way for me…. Restore me to liberty, And enable me to live now That I may answer before you and before men. Lord whatever this day may bring, Your name be praised. Amen ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer “Prayer”
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. ~Wendell Berry “To Know the Dark”from Soul Food – Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift. ~Mary Oliver “The Uses of Sorrow”
In the beginning, God did not banish the darkness. He balanced it with His illuminating Light. Fallen as we are, we search blindly for Him in the dark, where we need Him most. And He is there.
We are promised this: “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.
Darkness is not yet banished. But it is overcome. Whatever this day may bring, we have a lit pathway leading us home.
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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 ot 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 will guide our way into the path of peace.
And may the Word of the Lord spill onto my hands and into the opened stable of my heart.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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He who has come to men dwells where we cannot tell nor sight reveal him, until the hour has struck when the small heart does break with hunger for him;
those who do merit least, those whom no tongue does praise the first to know him, and on the face of the earth the poorest village street blossoming for him. ~Jane Tyson Clement
In the somber dark of a near-solstice morning, when there appears no hope for sun or warmth, I hunger for solace only He can bring.
He calls me forth from my hiding place, buried face down from the troubles of the world, burrowed deep in quilt and pillows, fearing the news of the day.
Only God glues together what evil has shattered. We must hand Him the shards of our broken hearts.
His offered hand bloodied by lifting us from the darkness~ into a growing light, where together we burst
into untimely blossom.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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As once a Child was planted in a womb (and later, erected on a hill, a wooden cross) one year we dug a hole to plant a tree. Our choice, a Cornus Kousa with its fine, pink, four-petaled bracts, each curving lip touched with a red as deep as human blood. It rooted well, and every year it grows more glorious, bursting free in Spring—bud into full flower, flame-colored, flushed as wine. Even the slim sapling’s roughened bark speaks of that tree, nail-pierced and dark. Now, each new year, fresh blossoms shine radiant, and each cross-blessed, as if all love and loveliness has been compressed into a flower’s face, fresh as the Son’s new-born presence, a life only just begun.
The dogwood leaves turn iron red in Fall, their centers fully ripening—into small seeded balls, each one a fruit vivid as Mary’s love, and edible. The sciontree, once sprung from Jesse’s root, speaks pain and life and love compressed and taken in, eye, mouth, heart. Incredible that now all Eucharists in our year suggest the living Jesus is our Christmas guest. ~Luci Shaw “Dogwood Tree” from Eye of the Beholder
Tree, we take leave of you; you’re on your own. Put down your taproot with its probing hairs that sluice the darkness and create unseen the tree that mirrors you below the ground. For when we plant a tree, two trees take root: the one that lifts its leaves into the air, and the inverted one that cleaves the soil to find the runnel’s sweet, dull silver trace and spreads not up but down, each drop a leaf in the eternal blackness of that sky. The leaves you show uncurl like tiny fists and bear small button blossoms, greenish white, that quicken you. Now put your roots down deep; draw light from shadow, break in on earth’s sleep. ~Roy Scheele “Planting a Dogwood”
For every leaf and blossom unfolding to the Light above, there is a root with tendrils surging deep to conquer the underground darkness.
Christ is born as our deep root of salvation.
He nourishes so we might flourish; we bloom because of Light drawn from shadow.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
Light beyond shadow, Joy beyond tears, Love that is greater when darkest our fears; deeper the Peace when the storm is around, nearer the Hope to the lost who is found.
Light of the world, ever shining, shining! Hope in our pain and our dying. in our darkness, there is Light, in our crying, there is Love, in the noise of life imparting Peace that passes understanding.
Light beyond shadow, Joy beyond tears, Love that is greater when darkest our fears; deeper the Peace when the storm is around, nearer the Hope to the lost who is found. -Paul Wigmore
My love and tender one are you My sweet and lovely son are you You are my love and darling you Unworthy, I of you
Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia.
Your mild and gentle eyes proclaim The loving heart with which you came A tiny tender hapless bairn With boundless grace of face
Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia.
King of Kings, most holy one Gone the sun eternal one You are my god and helpless son High ruler of mankind
Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia.
My love and tender one are you My sweet and lovely son are you You are my love and darling you Unworthy, I of you
Haleluia, haleluia, haleluia, haleluia. ~Traditional Gaelic carol Taladh Chriosda (Christ Child Lullaby) from the Hebrides
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He has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years uncounted . . . and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat. ~J.R.R. Tolkien from The Lord of the Rings
It is only 10 days before we bid farewell to autumn and accept the arrival of the winter solstice, signaling the long slow climb back to daylight. This giving-way to the darkness has felt like a defeat we may never recover from.
Yet the sunset becomes a startling send-off for fall, coloring Mt. Baker and surrounding an almost full moon with purple in the eastern sky. Our farm, for a deceptive few minutes, appears rosy and warm in crisp subfreezing weather. Then all becomes gray again, and within an hour we are shrouded in thick fog which ices the asphalt as darkness fell. It becomes a challenge to avoid the deep ditches along our country roads, with the white fog line being the critical marker preventing potential disaster.
The ever present fog this time of year cloaks and smothers in the darkness, not unlike the respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses that have hit many households hard this week. Plenty of people have been feverish, coughing and snuffling, unable to see past the ends of their swollen noses, as if the fog descended upon them in an impenetrable gray cloud. It is an unwelcome reminder of our vulnerability to microscopic organisms that can defeat us and lay us low in a matter of hours, just as a sudden freezing fog can lure us to the ditch.
We are forced to stay put, our immune systems fighting back at a time when there are dozens of responsibilities vying for attention in preparation for the holidays. Little gets accomplished other than our slow wait for healing and clarity–at some point the viral fog will dissipate and we can try climbing back into life and navigating without needing the fog lines as guides.
Ditches have been very deep for some folks recently, with unexpected deaths of loved ones, the diagnosis of cancers with difficult treatment options swallowing up their light and joy. Despite profound losses and pain, people courageously continue to fight, climbing their way out of the darkness to the light.
The day’s transition to night becomes bittersweet: these bright flames of color herald our uneasy future sleep after fighting the long defeat on this soil.
The sun “settles” upon the earth and so must we.
Be at ease, put down the heavy burden and rest. We can celebrate, with chorus and gifts, the arrival of brilliant light in our lives. Instead of darkness overcoming us, our lives become illuminated in glory, peace, and grace.
The Son has settled among us and so shall we be comforted.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
Sure on this shining night of star-made shadows round, kindness must watch for me this side the ground, on this shining night, this shining night
The late year lies down the north All is healed, all is health High summer holds the earth, hearts all whole 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, sure on this shining, shining night
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone Of shadows on the stars Sure on this shining night, this shining night On this shining night, this shining night Sure on this shining night ~from James Agee’s poem
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In the dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day, eager to be shared… I need more of the night before I open eyes and heart to illumination. I must still grow in the dark like a root not ready, not ready at all. ~Denise Levertov from “Eye Mask”
photo by Joel DeWaard
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. ~Isaiah 9:2
photo by Joel DeWaard
Take heart… There is a power here in the bowels of the earth, a “deeper magic,” as C.S. Lewis called it. Death is not given the final word. Christ doesn’t need to turn east to greet the sunrise: he is himself the Dawn by whose light we see light (Psalm 36:9). The sun will not set again. That was our last night. Ever. ~Sarah Arthur from Introduction to Between Midnight and Dawn
Over this past week of gray rainy days that begin and end in an all-encompassing and, in some ways, comforting darkness, I am feeling quite “hunkered down.”
I’m seeking shelter right now, surrounded like a root yet to sprout, needing time to ready myself for the power of the Light soon to come.
In the fullness of time, I’ll be called forth to merge with the Dawn.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: Such a Way, as gives us breath: Such a Truth, as ends all strife: Such a Life, as killeth death.
Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength: Such a Light, as shows a feast: Such a Feast, as mends in length: Such a Strength, as makes his guest.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: Such a Joy, as none can move: Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joys in love. ~George Herbert “The Call”
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Some days, words simply don’t come. I am stilled and plain – silent in darkness. God is in the depth of these empty hours. He is there – waiting alongside me.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. ~Isaiah 9:2
Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness.
As our Lord Jesus tells us, unless we see the light of God clearly, what we call light is actually darkness: “how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within.
Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness. ~Fleming Rutledge from Advent- The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ
It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter
from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come. I modernise the anachronism
of my language, but he is no more here than before. Genes and molecules have no more power to call him up than the incense of the Hebrews
at their altars. My equations fail as my words do. What resources have I other than the emptiness without him of my whole being, a vacuum he may not abhor? ~R.S. Thomas “The Absence”
There is no light in the incarnation without witnessing the empty darkness that precedes His arrival; His reason for entering our world is to fill our increasing spiritual void, our hollow hearts, our growing deficit of hope and faith.
God abhors a vacuum.
We find our God most when we keenly feel His absence, hearing no reply to our prayers, our faith shaken, not knowing if such unanswered prayers are heard.
In response, He has answered. He comes to walk beside us. He comes to be present among us, to ransom us from our self-captivity by offering up Himself instead.
He fills the vacuum completely and forever.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here; dispel the shadows of the night, and turn our darkness into light.
The people that in darkness sat a glorious light have seen; the Light has shined on them who long in shades of death have been.
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…to bear in her womb Infinite weight and lightness; to carry in hidden, finite inwardness, nine months of Eternity; to contain in slender vase of being, the sum of power – in narrow flesh, the sum of light.
Then bring to birth, push out into air, a Man-child needing, like any other, milk and love –
What could a baby know of gold ornaments or frankincense and myrrh, of priestly robes and devout genuflections?
But the imagination knows all stories before they are told and knows the truth of this one past all defection
The rich gifts so unsuitable for a child though devoutly proffered, stood for all that love can bring.
The men were old how could they know of a mother’s needs or a child’s appetite?
But as they kneeled the child was fed. They saw it and gave praise!
A miracle had taken place, hard gold to love, a mother’s milk! before their wondering eyes.
The ass brayed the cattle lowed. It was their nature.
All men by their nature give praise. It is all they can do.
The very devils by their flight give praise. What is death, beside this?
Nothing. The wise men came with gifts and bowed down to worship this perfection. ~William Carlos Williams “The Gift”
The uncontained contained infinite made finite humble made worthy a Deliverer delivered hungry sated on mother’s milk unsuitable made perfect darkness illuminated with possibilities the eternal here and now
How can you measure the love of a mother, Or how can you write down a baby’s first cry? Candlelight, angel light, firelight and starglow Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn. Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo! Angels are singing; the Christ child is born. Shepherds and wise men will kneel and adore him, Seraphim round him their vigil will keep; Nations proclaim him their Lord and their Saviour, But Mary will hold him and sing him to sleep. Find him at Bethlehem laid in a manger: Christ our Redeemer asleep in the hay. Godhead incarnate and hope of salvation: A child with his mother that first Christmas Day. ~John Rutter – words and music
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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…yea, thou art now Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother, Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb. ~John Donne from “Annunciation”
Christ, whose glory fills the skies, Christ, the true, the only Light, Sun of Righteousness, arise, Triumph o’er the shades of night; Dayspring from on high, be near; Day-star, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn Unaccompanied by Thee; Joyless is the day’s return Till Thy mercy’s beams I see; Till they inward light impart, Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.
Visit then this soul of mine, Pierce the gloom of sin and grief; Fill me, Radiancy divine, Scatter all my unbelief; More and more Thyself display, Shining to the perfect day. ~Charles Wesley “Christ, whose glory fills the skies”
It seems impossible that God could be contained within a womb. The Creator, who made the heavens, went inward into His vast 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.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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