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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The Word became flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light.
Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God… who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.” Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast. ~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark
Down he came from up, and in from out, and here from there. A long leap, an incandescent fall from magnificent to naked, frail, small, through space, between stars, into our chill night air, shrunk, in infant grace, to our damp, cramped earthy place among all the shivering sheep.
And now, after all, there he lies, fast asleep. ~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels
[The Incarnation is like] a wave of the sea which, rushing up on the flat beach, runs out, even thinner and more transparent, and does not return to its source but sinks into the sand and disappears. ~Hans Urs von Balthasar from Origen: Spirit and Fire
Perhaps it is the mystery of the thing that brings us back, again and again, to read the story of how God came down and disappeared into us.
How can this be? God appearing on earth first to animals, then the most humble of humans.
How can He be? Through the will of the Father and the breath of the Spirit, the Son was, and is and yet to be.
O great mystery beyond all understanding.
O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia!
O great mystery and wondrous sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord lying in their Manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
The composer Morten Lauridsen, is a Washington state native who was born only a few miles from where my mother grew up in the wheat fields of the Palouse, and now lives in retirement in the San Juan Islands. He wrote about his inspiration, wanting to compose something that honored the words as much as the Still Life painted by Zurbaran (above) honored the Virgin Mary.
“Zurbarán (1598-1664) is the painter of “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose.” The objects in this work are symbolic offerings to the Virgin Mary. Her love, purity and chastity are signified by the rose and the cup of water. The lemons are an Easter fruit that, along with the oranges with blossoms, indicate renewed life. The table is a symbolic altar. The objects on it are set off in sharp contrast to the dark, blurred backdrop and radiate with clarity and luminosity against the shadows.
In composing music to these inspirational words about Christ’s birth and the veneration of the Virgin Mary, I sought to impart, as Zurbarán did before me, a transforming spiritual experience within what I call “a quiet song of profound inner joy.” I wanted this piece to resonate immediately and deeply into the core of the listener, to illumine through sound.
The most challenging part of this piece for me was the second line of text having to do with the Virgin Mary. She above all was chosen to bear the Christ child and then she endured the horror and sorrow of his death on the cross. How can her significance and suffering be portrayed musically?
After exploring several paths, I decided to depict this by a single note. On the word “Virgo,” the altos sing a dissonant appoggiatura G-sharp. It’s the only tone in the entire work that is foreign to the main key of D. That note stands out against a consonant backdrop as if a sonic light has suddenly been focused upon it, edifying its meaning. It is the most important note in the piece.
A scholarly essay about Lauridsen’s composition is here.
Another version by a different composer:
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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
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Beyond the brimming ages Gabriel waits, his foremost message burning on his breath. Through time men slide, creeping through the gates of birth and out again the doors of death.
He sees kings rise and kingdoms fall to dust; he sees unnumbered souls unfleshed; to some he gives slight hints, but the full knowledge must wait, for his best words are not for them.
Then at last, coming from afar he sees, gleaming like a golden pin in time’s folds, Mary, rising like a star above the fretted seas of what had been;
bright hinge on which the gate of Heaven creaks, to her he turns, inclines himself, and speaks. ~J.C.Sharl “Annunciation”
Be patient and without bitterness, realizing the least we can do is make coming into existence no more difficult for Him than the earth does for spring when it wants to come. ~Rainier Marie 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
It’s when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart: not to a flower, not to a dolphin, to no innocent form but to this creature vainly sure it and no other is god-like, God (out of compassion for our ugly failure to evolve) entrusts, as guest, as brother, the Word. ~Denise Levertov “The Mystery of the Incarnation”
In the Christmas story, God … takes the risk of incarnation. The flesh God chooses is not that of a warrior but of a vulnerable baby, a claim that brought me tears of wonderment when I was young. But my adult knowledge of that infant’s fate — a fate shared by so many who have devoted their lives to love, truth, and justice — brings tears of anger and grief, along with a primal fear of what might happen if I followed suit.
…I know I’m called to share in the risk of incarnation. Amid the world’s dangers, I’m asked to embody my values and beliefs, my identity and integrity, to allow good words to take flesh in me. Constrained by fear, I often fall short — yet I still aspire to incarnate words of life, however imperfectly.
What good words wait to be born in us, and how can we love one another in ways that midwife their incarnation? ~Parker Palmer from “The Risk of Incarnation”
I, like you, am entrusted to care for the Word in its earthly incarnation: born into impoverished, humble, and homeless circumstances, He has no where to dwell in this world except within me and within you.
And that is no small price for Him to pay, as my human heart can be inhospitable, hardened, cold and cracked.
I, like you, am capable of the worst our kind can do.
So it is up to me to embody the Word in what I say and do, even if it means being rejected just as He was rejected, knowing that is the risk I must take.
For me, it feels as vulnerable as if I were a bare tree standing naked in the chill winter wind. I’m fearful I could break or topple over. Yet if I’m created to welcome, harbor and spread the incarnated Word, I must reach my roots deep, stand tall and find others who will stand alongside me.
This Advent, Iet us midwife the Word here on earth, delivering it over the threshold from heaven, straight to receptive, warm, and loving hearts.
My 2025 Advent theme: On the threshold between heaven and earth
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord— with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light. Zechariah 14:6-7
So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. ~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: Such a Way, as gives us breath: Such a Truth, as ends all strife: Such a Life, as killeth death.
Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength: Such a Light, as shows a feast: Such a Feast, as mends in length: Such a Strength, as makes his guest.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: Such a Joy, as none can move: Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joys in love. ~George Herbert “The Call”
1.Let all mortal flesh keep silence, And with fear and trembling stand; Ponder nothing earthly-minded, For with blessing in his hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, Our full homage to demand.
2.King of kings, yet born of Mary, As of old on earth he stood, Lord of lords, in human vesture, In the body and the blood; He will give to all the faithful His own self for heavenly food.
3.At his feet the six-winged seraph, Cherubim, with sleepless eye, Veil their faces to the presence, As with ceaseless voice they cry: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Lord Most High!
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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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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 Norrisfrom 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
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
(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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These still December mornings… Outside everything’s tinted rose, grape, turquoise, silver–the stones by the path, the skin of the sun
on the pond ice, at the night the aureola of a pregnant moon, like me, iridescent, almost full term with light. ~Luci Shaw from “Advent Visitation“in Accompanied by Angels
Writer Luci Shaw passed into eternity on December 1, just four weeks from her 97th birthday.
A life-long poet and essayist, in addition to being a wife, mother, publisher, gardener and outdoor enthusiast, Luci was a child of God who continually lived out and articulated the questions of faith, grace, and belief.
It is my privilege to have known her as a neighbor in nearby Bellingham. Her books grace my shelves and I cherish her many personal words of encouragement and mentoring.
Luci has gifted the world for decades with beauty and honesty, composing enriching poetic observations with heavenly anticipation. She was nearly full term, iridescent with light which glowed on those around her.
Below is only a small sample of her work. She was still writing and publishing poetry this year. More of her writing and many books can be found at www.lucishaw.com.
Luci Shaw -virtual presentation for Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing 2022
Last night I lay awake and practiced getting old. Not difficult,
but I needed to teach myself to love my destination before I arrive.
I feel the earth shifting under me. My writing hand shakes—its rubbery nudges clumsy,
my mind going slack, the way a day will lose its light and give itself to darkness,
and that long, nocturnal pause of inquiry— What next? And how long before light
reopens her blue eye? And will I need to learn a new language to converse with my Creator?
So, I am a questioner, one who waits, still, to arrive somewhere, some bright nest where
a new language breeds that I can learn to speak, unhindered, into heaven’s air,
somewhere I can live a long time, and never have to look back. ~Luci Shaw “December the 95th Year”
Luci Shaw at a Bellingham reading at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church -2017
In time of drought, let us be thankful for this very gentle rain, a gift not to be disdained though it is little and brief, reaching no great depth, barely kissing the leaves’ lips. Think of it as mercy. Other minor blessings may show up—tweezers for splinters, change for the parking meter, a green light at the intersection, a cool wind that lifts away summer’s suffocating heat. An apology after a harsh comment. A word that opens an unfinished poem like a key in a lock. ~Luci Shaw “Signs” from Eye of the Beholder.
Luci at a Bellingham reading of her poetry at Village Books in 2016
Today, in Bellingham, even the sidewalks gleam. Small change glints from the creases in the lady’s mantle and the hostas after the rain that falls, like grace, unmerited. My pockets are full, spilling over. ~Luci Shaw from “Small Change”
Out of the shame of spittle, the scratch of dirt, he made an anointing.
Oh, it was an agony-the gravel in the eye, the rude slime, the brittle clay caked on the lid.
But with the hurt light came leaping; in the shock and shine, abstracts took flesh and flew;
winged words like view and space, shape and shade and green and sky, bird and horizon and sun,
What next, she wonders, with the angel disappearing, and her room suddenly gone dark.
The loneliness of her news possesses her. She ponders how to tell her mother.
Still, the secret at her heart burns like a sun rising. How to hold it in— that which cannot be contained.
She nestles into herself, half-convinced it was some kind of good dream, she its visionary.
But then, part dazzled, part prescient— she hugs her body, a pod with a seed that will split her. ~Luci Shaw “Mary Considers Her Situation”
When, in the cavern darkness, the child first opened his mouth (even before his eyes widened to see the supple world his lungs had breathed into being), could he have known that breathing trumps seeing? Did he love the way air sighs as it brushes in and out through flesh to sustain the tiny heart’s iambic beating, tramping the crossroads of the brain like donkey tracks, the blood dazzling and invisible, the corpuscles skittering to the earlobes and toenails? Did he have any idea it would take all his breath to speak in stories that would change the world? ~Luci Shaw “Breath” from Accompanied By Angels: Poems of the Incarnation
because we are all betrayers, taking silver and eating body and blood and asking (guilty) is it I and hearing him say yes it would be simple for us all to rush out and hang ourselves but if we find grace to weep and wait after the voice of morning has crowed in our ears clearly enough to break our hearts he will be there to ask us each again do you love me ~Luci Shaw “Judas, Peter” from Polishing the Petoskey Stone
Down he came from up, and in from out, and here from there. A long leap, an incandescent fall from magnificent to naked, frail, small, through space, between stars, into our chill night air, shrunk, in infant grace, to our damp, cramped earthy place among all the shivering sheep.
And now, after all, there he lies, fast asleep. ~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels
Blue homespun and the bend of my breast keep warm this small hot naked star fallen to my arms. (Rest … you who have had so far to come.) Now nearness satisfies the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps whose eyelids have not closed before. His breath (so slight it seems no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps to sprout a world. Charmed by doves’ voices, the whisper of straw, he dreams, hearing no music from his other spheres. Breath, mouth, ears, eyes he is curtailed who overflowed all skies, all years. Older than eternity, now he is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed to my poor planet, caught that I might be free, blind in my womb to know my darkness ended, brought to this birth for me to be new-born, and for him to see me mended I must see him torn. ~Luci Shaw “Mary’s Song”
My 2025 Advent theme: On the threshold between day and night
On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord— with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light. Zechariah 14:6-7
So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. ~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
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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
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