It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window? ~Pat Schneider “The Patience of Ordinary Things”
…leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day end, A hand to touch me in the dark room Breaking the long loneliness. In the dusk of day-shapes Blurring the sunset, One little wandering, western star Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow. Let me go to the window, Watch there the day-shapes of dusk And wait and know the coming Of a little love. ~Carl Sandburg from “At a Window”
Everything looks a little different when framed by a window, especially in the winter when protected from the weather. I am set apart, looking out, rather than immersed within the icy snowy landscape myself.
With that separation, I feel as though I could be looking at the past, the present or the future.
It is not unlike being in an art museum, walking past masterpieces that offer a framed view into another time and place, populated with people I don’t know and will never meet.
So I go to the windows, moving through the house and peering out at the life that awaits beyond the frame. But rather than simply admire the view, protected as I am from the chill wind, I find the courage to walk out the door into whatever awaits beyond the glass.
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The cold has the philosophical value of reminding men that the universe does not love us…cold is our ancient companion. To return back indoors after exposure to the bitter, inimical, implacable cold is to experience gratitude for the shelters of civilization, for the islands of warmth that life creates. ~John Updike from “The Cold”in Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. ~Robert Frost “Fire and Ice“
One day, the scientists tell us, every star in the universe will burn out, the galaxies gradually blackening until
The last light flares and falls returning all to darkness where it will remain until the end of what we have come
to think of as time. But even in the dark, time would go on, bold in its black cloak, no shade, no shadow,
only the onward motion of movement, which is what time, if it exists at all, really is: the absence of reversal, the sheer
impossibility of that final fire dying into itself, dragging the day deep into what it no longer is,
bowing only to rise into the other, into a shining the heavens were commanded to host, the entire
always poised between the gravity of upward and downward, like the energy of a star itself constantly balanced between
its weight straining to crush its core and the heat of that same core heaving it outward, as though what destroys
redeems, what collapses also radiates, not unlike this life, Love, which we are traveling through at such
an astonishing speed, entire galaxies racing past, universes, it as if we are watching time itself drift
into the cosmos, like a spinning wall of images alrealdy gone, and I realize most of what we know
we can’t see, like the birdsong overheard or the women in China building iPhones or the men picking
strawberries in the early dawn or even sleeping sons in the other room who will wake up and ask
for their light sabers. Death will come for us so fast we will never be able to outrun it,
no matter how fast we travel or how heavily we arm ourselves against the invisible,
which is what I’m thinking, Love, even though the iron in the blood that keeps you alive was born from a hard
star-death somewhere in the past that is also the future, and what I mean is to say that I am so lucky
to be living with you in this brief moment of light before everything goes dark. ~Dean Rader“Still Life with Gratitude”
This week has been a good reminder of our helplessness and need for one another in the face of single digit temperatures with sub-zero windchills.
This is the kind of cold that tries men’s souls and frail bodies. This is “kill the bugs and the allergens” cold tries to balance out the ecosystem as well as our internal emotional and physical thermostats.
Chill like this descends unbidden from the Arctic, blasting through the thickest layers of clothing, sneaking through drafty doors and windows, and freezing pipes not left dripping. It leaves no one untouched and unbitten with universal freezer burn.
A bitter cold snap ensures even the most determined unhoused “living in the woods” individualists must become companionable or freeze to death, necessitating temporary shelter indoors with others for survival.
It sometimes means forced companionship with those we would ordinarily avoid, with whom we have little in common, with whom we disagree and even quarrel, with whom sharing a hug or snuggling for warmth would be unimaginable.
Our whole nation is in just such a temperamental and political cold snap today, so terribly and bitterly divided. If we don’t come in out of the cold, we each will perish alone. It is time to be grateful we have each other during these difficult times, ancient and uneasy companions that we are.
At least we might generate some heat by civilly discussing the issues we all face. The risk is letting disagreements get so out of control that nothing is left but smoke and ashes from the incineration.
Somewhere there must be middle ground: perhaps we can share sanctuary from the bitter cold through the warmth of a mutually well-tended and companionable hearth.
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Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road, my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first
through the woods, then out into the open fields past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop
and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue, green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.
I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening
a prayer for being here, today, now, alive in this life, in this evening, under this sky. ~David Budbill “Winter: Tonight: Sunset”
I strive to remember, each day, no matter how things feel, no matter how tired or distracted I am, no matter how worried, or fearful or heartsick over the state of the world or the state of my soul:
it is up to me to distill my gratitude down to this one moment of beauty that will never come again.
One breath, one blink, one pause, one whispered word: wow.
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All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
the norms of my culture the assumptions built into my language the values shared by my society.
But now you have called me out and away from home and I do not know where you are leading. I am empty, unsure, uncomfortable. I have only a beckoning star to follow.
Journeying God, pitch your tent with mine so that I may not become deterred by hardship, strangeness, doubt. Show me the movement I must make
toward a wealth not dependent on possessions toward a wisdom not based on books toward a strength not bolstered by might toward a God not confined to heaven
but scandalously earthed, poor, unrecognized…
Help me find myself as I walk in others’ shoes. ~Kate Compston “A Poem for Epiphany”
Deep midwinter, the dark center of the year, Wake, O earth, awake, Out of the hills a star appears, Here lies the way for pilgrim kings, Three magi on an ancient path, Black hours begin their journeyings.
Their star has risen in our hearts, Empty thrones, abandoning fears, Out on the hills their journey starts, In dazzling darkness God appears. ~Judith Bingham “Epiphany”
Unclench your fists
Hold out your hands.
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is his Glory Manifest. ~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany”
…the scent of frankincense and myrrh arrives on the wind, and I long to breathe deeply, to divine its trail. But I know their uses and cannot bring myself to breathe deeply enough to know whether what comes is the fragrant welcoming of birth or simply covers the stench of death. These hands coming toward me, is it swaddling they carry or shroud? ~Jan Richardson from Night Visions –searching the shadows of Advent and Christmas
Our troubles and concerns go on after Christmastide; our frailty becomes daily reality. We can be distracted by holidays for a few weeks, but our time here slips away even more quickly.
The Christmas story is not just about light and birth and joy to the world. It is about how swaddling clothes became a shroud that wrapped Him tight.
There is not one without the other.
God journeyed to be with us; planted on and in the earth, born so He could die in our place leaving the shroud behind, neatly folded.
Christmas: unwrapping that frees us forever. Epiphany: journeying to find the Seed has taken root in our hearts
January 6, the traditional day of celebrating “Epiphany” as the manifestation of God on earth in the form of His incarnate Son, calls us to deeper scrutiny of our earthly journey — away from our anger, our shame and our resultant homelessness, to the restoration of our souls, resting in the sacrifice of Christ Himself. He is the Seed growing within us.
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You never know what may cause them. The sight of the ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you’ve never seen before. A pair of somebody’s old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow…
You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure.Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next. ~Frederick Buechner fromWhistling in the Dark
photo by Emily Vander Haak
I’m not paying close enough attention to the meaning of my leaking eyes if I’m constantly looking for kleenex to stem the flow. During the holidays, it seems I have more than ample opportunity to find out the secret of who I am, where I have come from, and where I am to be next.
So I keep my pockets loaded with kleenex, and there is a box ready in every room of the house.
It mostly has to do with welcoming our three children, their spouses, and six grandchildren back home for a few days to become a full-out, noisy, messy, chaotic household again. There will be puzzles and games and music and laughter and unending laundry and constant meal preparation and consumption. It is about singing grace together in five-part harmony before we eat, praying precious words of gratitude.
It is about remembering the drama of our youngest’s birthday thirty-one years ago today, as if it were only yesterday, when her life was saved by a snowstorm. Now she and her husband bring their own son for visits back to the farm.
It certainly has to do with bidding farewell again, gathering them all in for that final hug and then letting go.
We have urged and encouraged them to go where their hearts are telling them they are needed and called to be, even if that means miles away from their one-time home on the farm. For our oldest son’s family, that means returning and settling in just down the road.
I too was let go once and though I would try to look back, too often in tears, I set my face toward the future. It led me here, to this marriage, this family, this farm, this work, our church, to more tears, to more letting go if I’m granted more years to weep again and again with gusto and grace and gravitas.
This is what I’m sure is the secret of me: to love so much and so deeply that letting go is so hard that tears are no longer unexpected or a mystery to me or my children and grandchildren. It is a given that Grandma will weep at a drop of a hat, at a hug, or a hymn. My tears are the spill-over of fullness that can no longer be contained: God’s still small voice spills down my cheeks drop by drop like wax from a burning candle.
No kleenex are needed with these tears.
Let them flow as I let them go. It is as it should be.
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Find a quiet rain. Then a green spruce tree. You will notice that nearly every needle has been decorated with a tiny raindrop ornament. Look closely inside the drop and there you are. In color. Upside down. Raindrops have been collecting snapshots since objects and people were placed, to their surprise, here and there on earth.
…even if we are only on display for a moment in a water drop as it clings to a pine needle, it is expected that we be on our best behavior, hair combed, jacket buttoned, no vulgar language. Smiling is not necessary, but a pleasant attitude is helpful, and would be, I think, appreciated. ~Tom Hennen from “Outdoor Photos”
… We are, as we have always been, dangerous creatures, the enemies of our own happiness. But the only help we have ever found for this, the only melioration, is in mutual reverence.
God’s grace comes to us unmerited, the theologians say. But the grace we could extend to one another we consider it best to withhold in very many cases, presumptively, or in the absence of what we consider true or sufficient merit (we being more particular than God), or because few gracious acts, if they really deserve the name, would stand up to a cost-benefit analysis.
This is not the consequence of a new atheism, or a systemic materialism that afflicts our age more than others. It is good old human meanness, which finds its terms and pretexts in every age. The best argument against human grandeur is the meagerness of our response to it, paradoxically enough.
And yet, the beautiful persists, and so do eloquence and depth of thought, and they belong to all of us because they are the most pregnant evidence we can have of what is possible in us. ~ Marilynne Robinson from “What Are We Doing Here?”
Grace rains down on us, often as a gentle shower, but sometimes in a torrential downpour.
I prefer quiet drizzle, clinging as droplets which reflect me as an earth-bound image of God.
Often, when I look at my upside-down image in a hanging drop, I feel downright unimpressive, even grouchy about getting wet. There I am, captured in a transparent selfie, about to fall to the ground and disappear forever.
Yet there are times when my image actually looks and feels presentable – maybe even a little beautiful – inside that drop of grace water.
God creates us pregnant with possibility. It is up to me to water the world with the love He bestows as unmerited grace. He can be so gentle and quiet, but I must be prepared for the deluge that sweeps me off my feet.
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Nothing much to look at lying on the shelf, one on top of the other, an old man resting his hands on a cane. Dried-out yellow cowhide, lines cut deep into the palms from stones, weeds pulled. Fingers crumpled, swollen like grub worms shoveled up in planting. An extra pair of hands helping with lawn work, flower beds, shrubs, whatever else comes along. A grief pulled on to bury the old cat some kid in a speeding pickup knocked out of the street like he’d kick a can. Or kneeling last fall to unearth the blooming rose suddenly plucked by an ice storm, then shaking rich compost loose from its twisted fingers still clenched, holding on for dear life. ~Ron Stottlemyer “Work Gloves”
My farm work gloves tend to look ragged at the end of a year of service. I always depend on being gifted a new pair at Christmas to start afresh. It can take awhile to break them in to the point where they feel like a “second skin.”
These gloves keep me from blistering while forking innumerable loads of smelly manure into wheelbarrows, but also help me unkink frozen hoses, tear away blackberry vines from fencing, pull thistle from the field and heavy hay bales from the haymow. Over the years, I’ve gone through a few dozen work gloves which have protected my hands as I’ve cleaned and bandaged deep wounds on legs and hooves, pulled on foals during the hard contractions of difficult births, held the head of dying animals as they fall asleep one final time.
Without wearing my protective farm gloves over the years, my hands would be looking very much scarred up like my tired gloves do, full of rips and holes from the thorns and barbs of the world, sustaining scratches, callouses and blisters from the hard work of life.
But they don’t.
Thanks to these gloves, before I retired, I was presentable for my “day” work as a doctor where I would don a different set of gloves many times a day.
But my work gloves don’t tell my whole story of gratitude.
I’m thankful to a Creator God who doesn’t wear gloves when He goes to work in our world: -He gathers us up even when we are dirty, smelly, and unworthy. -He eases us into this life when we are vulnerable and weak, and carries us gently home as we leave this world, weak and vulnerable. -He holds us as we bleed from self and other-inflicted wounds. -He won’t let us go, even when we fight back, or try not to pay attention, or care who He is.
He hangs on to us for dear life.
And this God came to live beside us with hands just like ours~ tender, beautiful, easy-to-wound hands that bled because He didn’t need or want to wear gloves for what He came to do~
His hands bear evidence of His love…
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The angel said there would be no end to his kingdom. So for three hundred days I carried rivers and cedars and mountains. Stars spilled in my belly when he turned. Now I can’t stop touching his hands, the pink pebbles of his knuckles, the soft wrinkle of flesh between his forefinger and thumb. I rub his fingernails as we drift in and out of sleep. They are small and smooth, like almond petals. Forever, I will need nothing but these.
But all night, the visitors crowd around us. I press his palms to my lips in silence. They look down in anticipation, as if they expect him to suddenly spill coins from his hands or raise a gold scepter and turn swine into angels.
Isn’t this wonder enough that yesterday he was inside me, and now he nuzzles next to my heart? That he wraps his hand around my finger and holds on? ~Tania Runyan “Mary” from Nativity Suite
Now, newborn, in wide-eyed wonder he gazes up at his creation. His hand that hurled the world holds tight his mother’s finger. Holy light spills across her face and she weeps silent wondering tears to know she holds the One who has so long held her. ~Joan Rae Mills from “Mary”in the Light Upon Light Anthology by Sara Arthur
Madonna and Child detail by Pompeo Batoni
The grip of the newborn is, in fact, superhuman. It is one of the tests of natural infant reflexes that are checked medically to confirm an intact nervous system in the newborn. A new baby can hold their own weight with the power of their hand hold, and Jesus would have been no different, except in one aspect:
He also held the world in His infant hands.
We have been held from the very Beginning, and have not been let go. Try as we might to wiggle free to go our own way, He keeps a powerful grip on us.
We know the strength of the Lord whose hands “hurled the world” into being.
This is what our good God has done for us… He hangs on tight.
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
Good people all, this Christmas time Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved son
With Mary holy we should pray To God with love this Christmas Day In Bethlehem upon that morn There was a blessed Messiah born
Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep To whom God’s angels did appear Which put the shepherds in great fear’
Prepare and go, ‘ the angels said ‘To Bethlehem, be not afraid For there you’ll find, this happy morn A princely babe, sweet Jesus born
With thankful heart and joyful mind The shepherds went, this babe to find And as God’s angel had foretold They did our saviour Christ behold
Within a manger he was laid And by his side the virgin maid Attending on the Lord of life Who came on earth to end all strife
Good people all, this Christmas time Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved Son
With Mary holy we should pray To God with love this Christmas day In Bethlehem upon that morn There was a blessed Messiah born
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One life, George learns, touches so many other lives. Far from a failure, his life was the glue that held together his family, his business, and his community. In the end, George embraces life, and the people of Bedford Falls gather around him in love, donating the money to restore the Building and Loan that had helped them to achieve their own simple dreams of freedom, independence, and dignity.
George Bailey neither does that which feels good nor asserts his own narrow vision of himself and his role in society. He accepts the responsibility that is placed upon his shoulders and allows himself to be shaped and defined by the needs of others around him. Rather than change the world to suit his own self-centered desires, he changes himself to adapt to the true calling that is upon him.
George Bailey does more than delay gratification. He embraces his true and essential identity and purpose and is strengthened to perform the work for which he was created. ~Louis Markos “Christmas With Capra: Classic Films for Our Troubled Times”
“ZuZu’s Petals” ~Lessons from “It’s a Wonderful Life”~
Our children had to be convinced Watching black and white holiday movies Was worthwhile~ This old tale and its characters Caught them up right away From steadfast George Bailey to evil Mr. Potter- They resonate in our hearts.
What surprised me most Was our sons’ response to Donna Reed’s Mary: ~how can we find one like her? (and they both did!) Her loyalty and love unequaled, Never wavering…
I want to be like her for you. When things go sour I won’t forget what brought us together In the first place. I’m warmth in the middle-of-the-night storm When you need shelter. I’m ZuZu’s petals in your pocket When you are trying to find your way back home.
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People, look east. The time is near Of the crowning of the year. Make your house fair as you are able, Trim the hearth and set the table. People, look east and sing today: Love, the guest, is on the way.
photo by Joel De Waard
Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare, One more seed is planted there: Give up your strength the seed to nourish, That in course the flower may flourish. People, look east and sing today: Love, the rose, is on the way.
Birds, though you long have ceased to build, Guard the nest that must be filled. Even the hour when wings are frozen God for fledging time has chosen. People, look east and sing today: Love, the bird, is on the way.
photo by Josh Scholten
Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim One more light the bowl shall brim, Shining beyond the frosty weather, Bright as sun and moon together. People, look east and sing today: Love, the star, is on the way.
Angels, announce with shouts of mirth Christ who brings new life to earth. Set every peak and valley humming With the word, the Lord is coming. People, look east and sing today: Love, the Lord, is on the way. ~Eleanor Farjeon “People, Look East”
I watch the eastern sky from the moment I get up each day. Most mornings remain dark, rainy and gray but there are some dawns that start with a low simmer around the base of the Cascade peaks. The light crawls up the slopes and climbs to illuminate the summits, then explodes into the skies.
Christ started small and lowly, then slowly crawled, until He walked and stood beside us. He climbed up willingly to sacrifice Himself. Once risen, He returned to the brilliance of the heavens.
Look east, good people, Love is on its way again, and again and again.
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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