Advent Visions

December 23: Love

Love. We see it all around, seek it with hunger and passion, grieve its ending. More songs and poems have been written about love than any other subject in the world. But the love that is chosen and lived is more glorious than the romance that bowls us over and convinces us that nothing could be easier. It is wonderful to see it in the lives of those who have been married in vital relationships for long years. But staying in a long love like that requires us to persevere in the face of many obstacles. These include the discovery that living with another human being reveals the dark side of ourselves. Love requires us to go into all those dark places with hope that understanding and forgiveness will give us another day.

Today we light the fourth candle on our Advent wreath. We call it the "candle of Love," and we set its flame to burning in order to announce that our small human loves, beautiful as they are, pale next to the supernova of God's love for us. Many humans say they don't believe in God, but they may still sense that the world cannot long endure without love. And what we need is not the "falling-in-love" sort of feeling. What we need is the love that chooses to be kind when it is not easy, which forgives instead of seeking revenge, which sees a mirror reflection in the eyes of a stranger, which would find some commonality in adversaries and admit its own shortcomings. This comes only by radical honesty and repeated practice.

I wish I were better at that. I do set it always as my goal: to love better. But here, on the edge of Christmas, I am grateful that love keeps coming after us. The message of Bethlehem is that in the heart of the universe is a love so breath-taking that it is beyond our understanding or deserving. But love isn't about deserving. It's more like the air we breathe, all around us. On our worst days, we still breathe it. In our darkest nights, it comes seeking us, calling us, covering us with its fierce tenderness. It's a baby in a manger, helplessly latching on to our hearts. It's a fire and a gift of gold, a wind stirring our souls, a fountain of life. It is hope. And peace. And joy. It will makes us new.

Love

So strong, so fierce, 
Love
is a lion
more powerful than any
evil thing,
protector of all.
So wild, so beautiful,
Love
is the song 
that fills the soul
and makes it dance.
So tender, so helpless,
Love
is a baby
whose little hands reach out
to be held
in your heart.

Advent Visions

December 22:  The Word
(Photo by Jack Hotchkiss)

The Christmas story is a small moment in the Bible, told only in two places.  Luke gives us the story of the shepherds, and Matthew tells about the Magi and the star.  John, the one who had a special place in Jesus' heart, ignores the tales of Jesus' birth altogether.   He opens his version of the story with a magnificent riddle, one that human beings have never fully understood.    Here's what he says:  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.   He was in the beginning with God.   All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being  in him was life, and the life was the light of all people."

This remarkable "Word" is "Logos" in Greek, from which we get our word "logic."  Great fields of knowledge like anthropology (study of human beings) or psychology (study of the psyche) have "logos" in them.   When John talks about "the Word" he is referring to the logic or reasoning behind the very existence of everything.  It is the idea which was in the Creator's mind that brought the universe into being.   And like most bright ideas, they don't amount to anything until they are communicated, expressed in words.   So what Word do you suppose God used to express his fundamental idea?   Douglas Adams, in his book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, imagines that a superior race invented a supercomputer that they hoped would answer the question that has plagued philosophers for eons:  “What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?”  And the answer churned out by the computer turns out to be "42."   It's the central joke in this wonderful novel.    Along those lines, it would be puzzling if God's initial word was "salami," or perhaps "hello."   

But John gives us a beautiful answer.   The great Word, the mind and heart of God, was "love."   And love can never be communicated abstractly, only in flesh and blood.   So what holds everything together, the reason behind our being, can be seen in a flesh-and-blood "word":  it's Jesus.    The one whose love holds the stars together, breathes the wind under the wings of seagulls,  and makes the sun give life to minnows, maple trees, and me.   It's the song at the heart of our carolling, the laughter of a baby, the whispering of lovers.  It's the mystery that touches our hearts most deeply, and brings us all to this stable in Bethlehem every Christmas.   It is that first holy word which "became flesh and dwelt among us."  It still does.

The Word

Listen.
Look East as the sun rises,
feel the wind in your hair,
the cry of the gulls rising
into the glorious blue above.
Listen
to the silence 
on this Christmas morning,
the quiet of a world
being made new 
at root and bud,
the peace of possibility.
Listen
to the breath
of the one you love,
a heartbeat that is life,
a miracle, a gift.
Listen
to the Word 
under and over 
every blessed thing:
Love.

Advent Visions

December 21:  Solstice

Today is the turning of the year.  The Winter Solstice marks the day of shortest sunlight, when the earth tilts farthest away from the sun in the Northern Hemisphere.    From now on the days will get lighter bit by bit.   The word "solstice" means "the standing still of the sun."   It is as if the year comes to balance on this dark day in December, and again on the longest day in June.   This fulcrum of time elicits a primal hope in the return of light which is life.    The ancients paused in this time to light fires, and the tradition of a lighted Christmas tree adorning a home goes far back beyond the Christian era.   In fact, it is likely that early Christians fixed the date of Christ's birth at the time of the solstice to proclaim their belief that Jesus was, indeed, the light of the world.   John's Gospel proclaims this truth in its glorious declaration that "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

I still remember an early Christmas in my life when my grandmother fixed small candles to the fir tree in the living room and lit them on Christmas Eve.   Occasionally a flame would singe the needles nearby and fill the room with the scent of pine.   My Great Uncle stood nearby with a pail of water as insurance against a greater fire.   The candles remained burning for just a few minutes of magic, but the memory has lingered for decades.  We still light fires at Christmas.  Often I have saved the stump of the past year's Christmas tree to kindle the fire in the hearth the following year, a tradition which is a kind of balance in itself.   We sit by the fire and meditate and dream and find comfort in the warmth and the golden light, trusting that even in the darkest days something bright will sustain us.   

Here at the fulcrum of the year, it is good, to pause and rest and join the sun in being still, for this restores some balance in our lives as well.   We live in a busy world that prizes activity.   Something about these darkest winter days calls us to sit quietly, to read and visit and stare into the flames of memory and hope.    This is the restorative season of the heart, where we share ancient traditions in order to discover who we are and who we will be.

Solstice

Light the fire 
in the winter night,
and let the blaze leap
with joy.
This small planet 
spinning through space
tilts slowly sunward again,
and carries us around
toward life.
And here we pause
and light our trees,
made to twinkle brightly
as if the stars themselves
could seek their home
with us.
And once a star did fall
on this benighted world,
and that flame will not go out
no matter how great or long
the darkness.

Advent Visions

December 20:  Moon

The moon was beautiful last night.  Nearly full, it shone through the bare branches of our great old maple tree, shining over our Christmas world.   Not bright "on the breast of the new-fallen snow," as in Clement Clark Moore's classic poem.   We will have no snow for Christmas this year.   But the moon will be close to full on Christmas Eve, and on the solstice tomorrow, too.     The old Farmer's Almanac says that there will not be a full moon on the winter solstice again until 2094, so I guess I won't be around to see it.      So I will take some time to wonder at the December "Cold Full Moon," as Native Americans call it.

Our human bodies and minds are intimately connected with the Moon.   We watch it wax and wane through the months of our lives, perhaps never noticing that the word "month" may be related to the word "moon."   Further, as it travels around the earth it tugs not only at our watery planet by affecting the ocean's tides, but it may tug at our mostly-liquid bodies as well.   The word "lunatic" refers to the belief that the full moon ("luna") causes erratic behavior in humans and animals.   Law enforcement officials report an increase in car accidents and criminal acts in the full moon.    Hospitals anecdotally prepare for more admissions and researches have found that during the full moon, restful REM sleep decreases.   And certainly the moon has a romantic tug on our imaginations.  Think of all the love songs about the moon!  And I love the scene in the great Christmas movie "It's a Wonderful Life," when the young George Bailey offers to lasso the moon for his beloved Mary.    Inspired, he  promises that "then you can swallow it, and it’ll all dissolve, see… and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and toes and the ends of your hair…”

We are all creatures made of stardust and moonbeams.  At Christmas we remember that there are forces at work in us and in the world greater, and more mysterious, than we understand.   We make our way through our lives in the light of day, making a living and trying to make sense of our world.   But there is another power, like the moon, which tugs at our inner being.   Its light is not blinding, but soft, glowing in our deepest nights.    We feel it rising and falling, a thing just beyond our reach.   It comes as an ancient and holy tale, a child in the manger, God with us.   Even in our modern world, it draws us back over and over again, like love itself, shooting out of our fingers and the ends of our hair, illuminating our darkness.

Moon

You rise in us,
moon of our being,
silver in the shadowed night.
We whisper in this sacred presence,
as this tug in our bones
stirs some holy wonder.
We look up,
see sometimes just a thin crescent 
of reflected light,
almost devoured by darkness.
And then, we wait to watch
a miracle:
the shining, full,
a longing face looking down,
the love 
at the heart of the stars,
the light of Christmas.

Advent Visions

December 19:   Bells

My wife and I have bells all around us.   There are sleigh bells on the front door, and they jingle merrily whenever anyone comes into the house.   And out on the barn is a large bell, hand-made out of an old oxygen tank.   I ring it every morning when I go out to feed the birds, and its deep tones resonate for a long time as I walk across the yard.   I like to think it announces the beginning of the day to the creatures in the woods and fields around us, its rich sound similar to one of those great Chinese or Japanese gongs that stand in a Buddhist temple, sending prayers for miles out into the world.   One of my favorite acquisitions was an old cowbell I found at the church Christmas fair many years ago.  It was dented and had a bullet hole in one side;  evidently in a prior life it had been used for target practice.  But I grew up in a family with many farmers, and so the sound of cows coming from the fields with their bells clanging is a reminder to me of a more bucolic, peaceful way of life.   

I don't know which bells inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write a Christmas carol in  the midst of the Civil War.  Perhaps the church bells of Cambridge, Massachusetts, pealed a hope for peace to a man riddled with despair.  His wife had died after being burned in a fire, and his oldest son, a Union soldier, was seriously injured the battle of New Hope Church in Virginia.   Perhaps it felt to him as if the world was falling apart, and he ached for an end to the evil, destruction and death that seemed to be everywhere.     And so when he heard the bells on Christmas day, he took it as a prayer, that "wild and sweet/ the words repeat/ of peace on earth, good-will to men!"   

We may sing about happy jingle bells on a one-horse open sleigh, but Christmas bells also represent an ancient, heartfelt yearning for peace on earth.   On Christmas Eve, we will ring the old bell high in the church tower at midnight, and we'll toll it again to usher in the new year on January 1.  And at home, every time someone comes in the front door, they will enter under a sign that says "Peace to all who enter here" as those sleigh bells ring a welcome.   And I will ring my big old bell in the back yard every morning of my life, praying for peace on earth until the cows come home.

Bells

Let them ring
across the meadows and hills,
echoing over the long river,
rising to the stars.
Let them ring
so that the small creatures
and the ornery ones,
the ones bitter to the heart
and the ones who ache and weep
may hear the prayer, the song.
Let them ring
deep and soulful,
bright and merry.
Let them clang and clatter;
let them cry wild and sweet:
Peace to all.
Peace to all.

Advent Visions

December 18:   Blue Jays

When we think of animals at Christmas time, a donkey often comes to mind.   We imagine the Holy Family making their way to Bethlehem with Mary and her unborn baby on the back of a humble donkey.   Then there were the camels bearing the Magi, and the cows whose manger became the baby's cradle.  But there are old traditions that imagine the birds at Christmas.   The doves in the rafters watched the mother and child, and a French carol imagines the green finch and the philomel singing "Noel" on Christmas day.   Another old legend says that all the animals, wherever they may be, kneel or bow their heads at midnight on Christmas Eve.   This acknowledges that the Christmas story is about the love of God for all of creation--human, furred, feathered, scaled--in all its forms.

I have a special fondness for the blue jays in my back yard.    Over the years I think they have come to recognize me as I fill the feeders at sunrise every morning.   I also dump a scoop of raw peanuts on the woodpile and on a little wooden platform on the far side of the yard.    There is always at least one jay high in the trees keeping watch, and when I start across the yard he sets off the alarm.  Soon a dozen or more jays fly in, all making a joyous racket of gratitude.   They dive down for a peanut and fly back up into the branches to have their breakfast.   Occasionally they don't like the peanut they choose, and they bring it back to the pile and take another.   I've never seen another bird do that!

I offer them a blessing as they gather:   "Pax vobiscum," I say.   Peace be with you.   "Et in terra pax."   And on earth, peace!   It is my prayer that the Christmas blessing touch all creatures, great and small.   As we do open our hearts to all creation, we feel the heart of the Creator and share in a vision for a peaceable realm where, in their own way, all creatures share in offering praise and joy for the gift of life itself.   A few years ago I wrote a carol set to the tune of the Gloucester Wassail.  

The Creatures' Wassail

Refrain:
Sing out, sing out, in every voice
For Christ is born!  Let all rejoice!
Sing birds of the air, and fish of the sea,
And the squirrel on the branch at the top of the tree!

1.   Good news to the wren, and the cardinal, and jay
Who gather with joy on this bright Christmas day,
Make berries your feast;  then take to the wing
And do loops in the sky as carols you sing!

2.  The cow in the barn, the horse in the stall
Proclaim the glad tidings to creatures all,
Sing "Moo" in the morn, join in with a "Neigh,"
And hear an "Amen" from the mouse in the hay.

3.   The dog does bark and chases his tail
To answer  the song of the sweet-throated whale,
The cat purrs content as she sleeps on her bed
For the child who was born in an animal shed,

4.   The skunk and the rabbit make tracks in the snow
They dance to the song of a merry old crow,
The owl hoots with joy in the silver moonlight
For the Savior was born on Christmas night!

5.   The deer leaps with joy as he flashes his tail
The foxes join in as the creatures wassail,
The chipmunk’s asleep in her underground nest--
With a bright Christmas dream she’s  peaceful and blessed.

Advent Visions
 
December 17:   Secrets

The days before Christmas in a home with children is a time of excitement and anticipation.   Wrapping presents and stashing them in an out-of-the-way closet or attic corner is part of the fun.   At a certain age, kids know that there are gifts hidden somewhere, and the impulse is to sneak around and try to find them.   But it is far more pleasurable to resist that temptation and wait for the surprise of having them appear under the tree on Christmas morning.

I love playing Santa Claus to the people in my life.   The act of giving should be a joy, and I always enjoy trying to find something that isn't on a laundry list of "Christmas wants."   Most of the time it works, though occasionally I have given gifts that I can tell are a little off the mark--the Hershey's kisses earrings and the Mr.Peanut necklace among them.   Nonetheless, being a "secret Santa" is a pleasure, and although gift-wrapping is not my forte, it is wonderful to watch as someone tears open a package and discovers the secret hidden inside.   That's why we wrap our gifts in pretty paper and ribbons--to make the discovery of what's inside even more tempting.  

Christmas presents are the best kind of secret.   They come from the place of love and offer the delight of discovering the heart behind the secret.   But keeping a secret can be either a joyful responsibility or a destructive impulse.   Secrets that undermine honesty and diminish relationships don't give much joy when they are revealed.  Often they become a terrible burden that cause heartache and pain.    And then there are the deepest secrets, the ones that we spend our lives trying to understand.   Why do I behave and think the way I do?   What is my purpose in life?   Why am I here at all?   What is the great gift I have been given--the one that will make the world a better place?  To discover those secrets is one of the greatest tasks of our existence, and the path of discovery seems to lead us always through the little town of Bethlehem.

Secrets

What wonders
are hidden
in wrapping and ribbon?
Treasures or trinkets,
they hold a deeper secret.
the one which always touches
my searching heart.
It is the secret at the atom's center,
the one that guides the galaxies
and makes a seed stir to life.
If all our seeking
in this beautiful and perplexing world
helps us to unlock the secrets of life,
it may take us back again
to a star and a stable,
and to the love which holds
the world together,
the greatest secret of all.

Advent Visions

December 16:  Joy

Christmas is a time of joy.  In our church today we lit the third candle of the Advent wreath.  It is a pink candle among purple ones, to remind us that joy erupts in unlikely times and places--even in the midst of troubles and sorrow.  That is what distinguishes it from mere happiness.   We can do things to try to make ourselves happy, and certain people or situations are likely to elicit a sense of happiness in us.   The word "happy," in fact, comes from the same root word as our word "happen," which points out that happiness is dependent on what happens in our lives.   But joy is different.  Joy rises from the heart, and sometimes it surfaces unbidden, like a shooting star or a sunbeam, in an unexpected time.   

I know this to be true.  A week or so ago while we were putting up the Christmas tree in our living room, we listened to Christmas carols and laughed as we placed the ornaments on the tree.  Each one seemed to bring a memory, or connect with some special Christmas or person in our lives.   We were feeling happy, of course, when out of a bin of ornaments we found a little wreath with a primitive Santa sitting in the middle.  Around the edge were the words, "Merry Christmas, Adam."  Adam.   Our beautiful son, who died a couple of years ago.  Suddenly the levity of the moment was broken by a wave of grief and loss.    Our happy moment was engulfed in the momentary chasm of sorrow, as in that tiny ornament we glimpsed the boy who would never come through the Christmas door again.    And then joy, knowing that Adam had been such a blessing in our life, that his laughter is not forgotten, that we can still hear him play "Silent Night" on his saw on Christmas Eve, that we have such wonderful stories about his life.   That he is, still, with us, forever.

The writer Jan Richardson reflected that "it is wondrously strange, how in the deepest, sharpest grief, joy can come and inhabit the very same space. One does not negate the other. But in the mysterious physics of mourning, they abide together. Joy allows sorrow to have its say, but it does not let despair have the final word."     Happiness is an achievement.  Joy is always a gift.   Joy is, also, forever, the final message of life itself.

Joy

Joy comes as gift,
not sought or earned.
Like a wave on the shore--
splashing up on rocks,
scattering light--
or as a whisper
in the night
bearing a wondrous secret,
joy is the holy heart
of our given lives,
the thing born in us
when love comes calling,
the thing which then
gives birth
to love again.

Advent Visions

December 15:  Ferden

Holidays and festive occasions of all kinds are celebrated by sharing food together.  Christmas, especially, is a time for traditional meals and recipes which are handed down from one generation to another.   Every nationality and ethnic group has its wonderful holiday foods, such as German stollen, English plum pudding, and Italian panettone.  It's fruitcake time, too, although there is some question about whether anybody actually eats them or not.  My mother occasionally made ammonia cookies, which filled the kitchen with a horrible pungent smell while the cookies were being made.   But the ammonia seemed to dissipate while cooking, and the resulting cookies were light and crisp and delicious.

I confess that I have a weakness for all baked goods.   When I was a small child,  my family would make a weekly stop at my grandmother's house after attending church service on Sunday morning.    Always she made coffee cake from scratch, using no recipe except what was in her head.   It was light and buttery and topped with cinnamon and sugar, and I have been trying for years to duplicate (unsuccessfully) what, for me, was a warm and wonderful childhood memory.  I remember, too, that my grandmother allowed me a small cup of coffee dosed with lots of milk and sugar.   She made the coffee by boiling the grounds directly in the water and then pouring the resulting black liquid slowly into our cups to minimize the sediment.   But there were always some grounds left in the bottom of our cups, and my grandmother, with her supernatural powers, would read my fortune in the grounds, always predicting wealth, romance, and success.   I was in awe.

My favorite Christmas food tradition, however, is Ferden.   They are small, round doughnuts fried in a special iron pan--also known as an aebleskiver pan.  My father loved these little doughnuts because of his own Christmas memories.   He grew up in a poor home.   During the hard years of the Depression, there was not much money for a fancy Christmas.   He and his brother would walk the railroad tracks to pick up coal that could be burned in the home furnace, and often they would go miles to find a bakery with day-old bread which could be purchased at a great discount.  Christmas did not promise much by way of presents, either.   But early on Christmas morning, his mother would send him down the alley to her parents' house.  He carried a basket to collect the warm, sugary Ferden that his grandmother would send back to share with the family.  "Eddie," she would say, "you can have one or two before you go home, but leave the rest for your brother and sisters."  I'm sure he had a ring of cinammon and sugar around his mouth by the time he got home.   It was love and joy, after all--the thing that always redeems a scarce and difficult time.    I still make a batch of Ferden every Christmas morning in our kitchen and think of my father with love.   And I remember that another child was born once in a scarce and difficult time, in a little town called Bethlehem.    The name of the town

means "house of bread."

Ferden

Just a doughnut,
it is my father,
and the house of his joy,
the love that held him
in his thin but hopeful days.
We give all that we are,
when we feed the ones
who are our flesh and bone.
Not just flour and eggs, 
sugar and cinammon,
these are sacrament,
an ancient and holy communion
where it is our very self
we give.
This is my body,
I mean, offering 
the plate of sweetness:
a bit of my own best being,
given in memory and blessing.
Take and eat.

Advent Visions

December 14:  Geminids

The annual Geminid Meteor Shower makes its appearance every December, and this year December 13 and 14 are the opportunities for greatest visibility.  On a perfect dark night, with little moon and no clouds, you may be able to see over 50 shooting stars per hour.  For almost 200 years people in North America have been going outside to catch a glimpse of these celestial fireworks, first sighted in 1833 from a riverboat on the Mississippi River.   These meteors are the remnants of an ancient asteroid that intercept our earth's orbit each December.    It's exciting to go outside in the frosty night, all bundled up from the cold, to feel the wonder that the ancient Wise Men must have felt following the star to Bethlehem.

The only problem is that tonight is supposed to be rainy.   No stars.  No meteors.  No wonder in the meadow.  The Geminids will be streaking through the sky, and I won't be able to see them.   One of the incongruities of Advent and Christmas is that we are often frustrated by the realities which we can't see.   The holy child of Bethlehem, so revered by the world today, went unnoticed at the time of his birth.   He came into the world, and nobody saw him except for a few excited shepherds and a frazzled inkeeper.    One of the opportunities of Advent is to live mindfully in a world where some of the most beautiful and important realities are invisible.    Recently I was sent a wonderful photo of Arlene Macmillan as a young girl, joyously riding her bicycle.   Maybe if you look at her smile, you can recognize her as the one who is a grandmother today.    Nobody in 1947 could have looked at that young girl and seen the woman she turned out to be.   And it's sad that as we look at this silver-haired woman today, it is easy to forget that a free-spirited, wondrous child is still in her heart.  

We should look at every person we meet and see in them a child--a person of hopes and dreams--and a beloved, divine spirit.     The sloppily dressed old man shuffling down the street, the tattooed guy on a motorcycle, the hard-bitten felon in jail, the mentally challenged woman in the convenience store, the silent and almost invisible neighbor--all of them holy and beloved.   What would it mean to see that essence in everyone we encounter, the reality which is often obscured from our vision?   In India, people sometimes greet each other with a bow and the blessing "Namaste."   A common translation is, "The divine light in me sees the divine light in you,"  or "I bow to the place in you that is love, light, and joy."   What a gift:  to walk through the day and recognize our one-ness with everyone we meet.   It would mean that, in spite of the clouds, we might discover starlight.


Geminids

Tonight
there are falling stars,
the tinsel of the universe.
I would be a wishing child
and ask for wings,
or a golden jackpot,
or a great, long life.
Or maybe it would be
just enough
to take in the glory
of a silvered moment,
and to remember it 
on some bitter day
when the world seems drab.
Let me not forget
that there are stars,
and glory,
in everyone I meet.

Advent Visions

December 13:  St. Lucia

This morning I got up early to walk our two small dogs.  They don't seem to mind the cold too much.   But in these shortest days of the year here in Connecticut, it is dark at 6 a.m.    The older of the pair, Bug, only has one eye as a result of an infection a few years ago.   That eye is now starting to cloud over with a cataract, so she depends on her nose--and me--to help her find her way in the dark.   

Today is the feast day of St. Lucia, a third century saint and martyr who is venerated in the far northern countries of Scandinavia even though she lived in Italy.  Legends say that as a young woman of faith, she carried food to Christians hiding  in the catacombs.    The story goes that because her hands were full, she lit her way along the dark and twisting tunnels of the catacombs by putting candles in a wreath, which she wore on her head.    And so Lucia has come to represent the triumph of light over darkness.  In Sweden, her festival is kept each year on Dec. 13.  In many homes, a young woman, dressed in white and wearing a candled wreath on her head, carries cardamom-infused buns to the members of the household early in the morning.    I remember fondly my Great Aunt Anna, who was of German descent, hosting a feast of Swedish foods (including pickled herring, lutefisk, and Lucia buns) because her husband, my Great Uncle Daniel, came from Sweden.  She always served rice pudding with an almond hidden in one dish, promising wealth in the coming year to the person who got the almond.     I never was the lucky one as a child, and so I was never rich.  But I still remember to pause on Dec. 13 to think about St. Lucia, my Aunt Anna, and the light they both brought into the world.   

There is darkness in every life.  Some of it is very dark, deep as the deathly catacombs of ancient Rome.    When we are there, we may feel like we will never find our way out.    St. Lucia's message is that we should always  follow the light, no matter how small it is.   And if there is no light at all, my little one-eyed dog reminds me, find someone who can see and go with them.


St. Lucia's Day

Lady in white,
awaken us 
who slumber in darkness
with your sweet song.
Stir us to rise
with some tiny hope
that beyond the candles
and heaven's stars,
there is a light
more true, more home
than any night.

Advent Visions

December 12:  Memories

This season is a time for memories.   It is often a time when we reminisce about the magic we once experienced as children, a magic that gets harder and harder to experience anew. 
This picture is the front of a Christmas card my parents sent out decades ago featuring me, little Timmy in my PJs, blowing out a candle.    I recall one particular Christmas when I was that little.  I was sick with a very bad cold, hardly able to breathe.   I was miserable, sleeping most of the time.   For several days I didn't even get out of my pajamas.   The saving grace was that my mother dosed me with chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, lathered me with Vicks Vapo-Rub, and propped me up on the living room sofa as we paged through the Sears Roebuck catalog and read Christmas stories to pass the time.     It was an awful time, really, but somehow I remember it with joy--one of the special Christmases of my life.   I know it was because I felt such love and security, the best Christmas gift of all.     It's why the smell of  Vicks Vapo-Rub still means Christmas to me.

Years ago a man showed up at our church after all the services were over.   He sat slumped over in the back row, and I asked him if I could help him in any way.  He was rough and unshaven, and he showed me the scars all over his tattooed body.  He pulled a beer out of his pocket and told me the story of a desolate life, which involved drug abuse, gang fights, and prison.    He had a mean-looking knife strapped to his leg, which he called his best friend.  He said he had just been released from jail and was trying to figure out how to re-start his life.   He had come to the church on an impulse.   In those months in jail he remembered the one short happy episode of his childhood, when he was placed in the care of an older set of foster parents.   They had brought him to this church then, he remembered, and it was that one Christmas when he had felt safe, happy.   He hoped that maybe he could find that again.

Of course the truth is that we can't go back.   And memories fool us into believing that once everything was beautiful.   We glamorize our past, often dismissing or minimizing the sadness and pain.   Even a child's sickness can seem wonderful, because love was there.    Rather than wallow in nostalgia, this is what we can do to hallow our memories:   we can help make a world where love is.

Memories

Once we were better,
and the world was, too.
Magic was in the snow,
silver as tinsel,
and Santa was as real
as love.
We carry it all,
that world of goodness,
and our memories 
are the bright wrapped packages
that we open 
in our scarred and somber years
to give us joy,
and to help us find our way
to the unseen treasures
that may yet be ours.

Advent Visions

December 11:   Wonder

Celeste Dionne Denne sent me an old photo of her cousin June, who is now about 70 years old, meeting Santa for the very first time.  She writes:  "I have always loved this picture, as she sees Christmas through the eyes of a child, filled with awe and wonderment of what was to come.  It stirs those same feelings of old, when I would count down the days to his arrival each night, as I lay in bed.  Now, I have those same feelings of hope, excitement and awe, as I eagerly await the celebration of Christ's coming to us on earth."

Awe and wonder are at the heart of all spirituality.   To walk through the world mindlessly, as if this place and this day were simply insignificant, ordinary things, is the greatest sacrilege.   This moment in time is, for each of us, filled with possibility.   It is colored, choreographed, and designed for just this one moment in eternity, to be grasped and held with gratitude and grace.   The proper response is "awe and wonderment."   We feel it come upon us unbeckoned sometimes.   We stand on a mountain and see the world spread out before us.   We feel the wind in our face as we ride the waves.   We awaken to the first snow falling outside the window.  We watch our bride start down the aisle, overcome by love and joy.   We hold our infant child and know that the world has changed for us.  

But we can practice wonder, too.   We can remember the child who climbed into Santa's lap, or  who saw a lighted Christmas tree, or who raced into a winter wonderland to make a snowman.   We can open ourselves to the possibility that this day, and this life, are not random and inconsequential.   They may be, at heart, a gift from Someone who loves us very much.

Wonder

I should gasp at this,
feel excitement well in me,
when stars dust the sky
on a cold winter night,
and I am here to see.
And firelight and candles
burn, warm and soft,
and there is a hand I love
reaching for mine.
And this incense of balsam
carries me to another time,
where the child I was 
calls me again
to be the child I am.
This is a wonder,
this life, all of it.
So I must take off my shoes
on this holy ground,
and laugh, or bow,
or sing for simple joy
for this most awesome gift.

Advent Visions

December 10:  Virgin

Our annual Christmas caroling event took place Sunday afternoon.   A small crowd of us wandered down Main Street, led by two young women dressed as Mary and Joseph, along with three kids in a donkey costume (which meant it had six legs).  In the old Mexican tradition of Las Posadas, Mary and Joseph knock on doors of the village and ask for hospitality and a place to spend the night.  So we stopped at storefronts and houses asking for lodging, too.  I had to give a hint to the manager of the convenience store, to the guy at the pizza shop, and to the proprietor of the kitchen supply outfit with his two large dogs, and instruct them that they were supposed to send us away empty-handed.   They all played along, except for the attendant at the laundry who had such a big heart that she couldn't bring herself to send us off without at least a "God bless you" and a wave.    One of our traditional stops was in the grocery store, where we gathered to sing carols by the cash registers and take our annual photo of Mary holding a bottle of "Extra Virgin Olive Oil."  It is always one of the laughs of the day, along with the silliness of having the donkey's head fall off from time to time.

Ancient tradition is that Mary was "the virgin mild," whose baby turned out not to be Joseph's at all, but God's.   The truth of the matter is that the Hebrew word for "virgin" is "almah," which means only a young woman, perhaps 13 or 14 years old.  When we use the word as an adjective to describe the mother of Jesus, we think of an innocent, chosen by God for her purity.    This is not something most of us can try to achieve in our lives.   We are beyond purity, innocence.   We are sullied by the jaded world in which we live.   We have sold ourselves to unworthy causes.  We often dream ugly dreams, and suspect that others are doing so as well.  

But there is still some old innocence in me, a child who believes in goodness and who wants to love.   I would like to be chosen for a holy task, or at least a lovely one.  Advent invites me to pick up the "extra virgin oil" and offer to be Mary once in a while.

Virgin

She was confounded
by the surprise,
not at all ready to take on
a birth.
But her heart was young
and joy was in her
as she grasped the gift
laid before her.
It was her life,
given once, twice, 
a thousand times,
a miracle a day 
where love could bloom,
a rosebud for 
a stone-souled world.
Open the door,
innkeeper of my heart.
Find the place 
where the virgin still
sings.

Advent Visions

December 9:   Signs

My wife has an uncanny ability to find hearts wherever she is.   Heart-shaped rocks.  Heart-shaped leaves on the ground.  Heart-shaped clouds in the sky.   Heart-shaped holes in a tree stump.   For her, these omnipresent hearts are a sign that there is love to be found everywhere in the world.   (She also has an amazing ability to find four-leaf clovers!)       Many of us look for signs to assure us that the world is not random and meaningless, but full of significance.     We often seek signs at crossroads moments in our lives.  Or after a death or loss we may get a sign helping us to believe that our beloved lives on in another dimension of love.   We want to believe that the whole world is full of presence--an energy or a spirit at the heart of the universe that is always seeking to draw us in.  

Scripture's ancient lore delights in describing the incessant signs which are scattered around the earth by the Creator.   One of the first was the rainbow, set in the sky at the end of a terrible deluge.   Forever the bow in the sky would be a sign of hope and promise, a reminder that the intentions of God are benevolent and that there will never be a storm or trial so great that there won't be hope in a new day.    Accompanying today's message is a photo taken by Jack Hotchkiss in Hebron, Connecticut.   It captures two signs of grace:  a heart-shaped tree against an arching rainbow.     I don't think that these little gifts are  mere coincidences, as some would claim.  It is my hope--not only in Advent's time of expectation, but always--that we are given signs to encourage us.   They are little "post-it notes" from God, who waits with joy as we discover these signs.    

SIGNS


It was just the bright flash
of a cardinal in a bare tree
that made my heart leap
on a dreary day.
I read the signs of my life
in grace notes
everywhere:
a heart in the center of a hickory nut,
a rainbow's ribbon,
a hawk lifting up my eyes,
a forgotten song stirring a memory
a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths.
Always, everywhere,
there are holy signs
bearing my name.
I watch for them.

Advent Visions

December 8:  Lights

December is a season of lights.   We are right now in the midst of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which features the lighting of candles to remember a dark day centuries ago when the last remnant of oil for the temple lamps kept the lights burning against all odds for eight days.   And Christians light candles on an Advent wreath to acknowledge "the light of the world," which will never be overcome.   And our culture loves its holiday lights.   They twinkle up and down every street, on Christmas trees, outlining roofs and porches,  configured in the shape of reindeer and snowmen.  Neighbors often try to outdo each other with the extravagance of their displays.  Our nearby village of Ivoryton is bright with over 500,000 lights in great hoops and swags, on trees and buildings, in every color of the rainbow.  I am sure you can see Ivoryton from outer space!  And tonight in our small town of Deep River, folks of all ages will be out on Main Street for our annual Holiday Stroll, which this year features a Light Parade:  vehicles decorated with wonderful lights in procession through the town center!

In this darkest time of the year Christmas lights are a welcome sign of hope and cheer.  But even a single light can make a difference when it's dark.   This week we marked the passing of former President George H.W. Bush, who believed that ordinary citizens, volunteering with passion and action, could be like "a thousand points of light" in the world.    I think it is so.   Yesterday, while Christmas shopping with my wife, I witnessed a few of those "points of light."   A  clerk raced out of a store to deliver a purchase to a customer who had inadvertently left it behind.   A waitress in a restaurant went out of her way to welcome us and recommend menu items she thought we might enjoy
.   A parking lot attendant, cold and weary, encouraged us to drive safely and to enjoy the love of the holiday.  A woman behind a counter smiled patiently and helped me when I managed to knock over two displays at the same time.  A stranger offered to take a picture of us in front of a festive display.  These gestures may not change the world.  But I'll take every point of light I can get!

LIGHT

A candle in the window
is light enough
to chase the shadows.
The year bends
in its winter arc,
where night and cold reign.
Yet we set lights burning
to claim this domain
for Another,
to be a sign that love
shines among us,
and sometimes shines in us,
where the brightness
is love itself.

Advent Visions

December 7:   Infamy

This is the date which President Franklin Roosevelt said "would live in infamy."  On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, pulling the United States into World War II.  The war had already been going on for over two years, with Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Battle of Britain already over.    The U.S.A. was still at peace, getting ready to celebrate another Christmas, when the shocking attack in Honolulu took place.

Today we remember the lives lost 77 years ago as we go about our preparation for another Christmas.   And we recall the devastating toll which wars have taken on this little planet, where we still yearn for nations and peoples to live in peace.    Though circumstances have roused nations and people to take action against evil of many kinds, we must acknowledge the sadness of lives lost--young men and women who might have become scientists and doctors, teachers and musicians, Presidents and pastors.   And we dream of the day when we "ain't gonna study war no more," as the old Gospel hymn says.

But Christmas always comes, with its hope of "peace on earth, good will toward all," in the midst of struggle and pain, darkness and despair.   The ancient story we tell every year reminds us that the Holy Child was born in a humble stable, poor and helpless.   It must be so, for it is that broken world, where we bear the wounds of sorrow and fear, that needs a Holy Child most of all.

ANOTHER BIRTH

We mark the battles, the deaths,
the costly victories, the martyrs' graves:
the autographs of our human history
on this sweet, sacred planet.
Let it be
that the Holy One
will find a way to our Bethlehem
once more,
to the places we have forgotten
and the ones we remember too well.
Let it be
that there will be
another birth in our night,
a prince of peace.

Advent Visions

December 5:  Adventure

I like ordinary days.  I find comfort in my simple routines.  Every morning I get dressed, make the coffee, feed the cats, take the dogs for their walk, fill the bird feeders, scatter peanuts for the squirrels, take my vitamins, read the paper, work the puzzles.   It is a quiet, peaceful way to enter the day.    If something unexpected disrupts my rhythm, I feel anxious, scattered.     Often we offer a rather generic greeting when we meet each other, such as"Have a nice day."   There is nothing wrong with wishing someone a good day.  But usually those words mean something like, "I hope nothing bad or disastrous happens to you today."  Or "may your day be pleasant and peaceful."

But there may be a better thing we could wish for each other.   It's the child's wish that each day could be an adventure.   Children awaken to possibility, and the child in us still stirs in us to discover some new path, some delightful surprise, that may await us.    We are given a limited number of days in the treasury of our lives.   This season of Advent invites us to undertake an adventure in which those days are filled with wonder and mystery, unexpected graces, moments of beauty, experiences that will glitter in our memories like stars.   

What if we started by watching the sky fill with rose-colored light.   Then imagine where the day's adventure could lead.   Walk in the woods or by the river, and look for the little miracles that often go unnoticed as we pass too quickly by.   Greet strangers on the street or in the gas station.   Go into Dunkin' Donuts and buy everybody a coffee.   Sing Christmas carols on the street corner.   Go to a nursing home and visit someone.   Call an old friend you haven't heard from for ages.   Write a letter to the editor.   Drive to work by a route you've never traveled before.   Buy flowers for someone who doesn't expect them.   Send a card to someone you love and tell them what they mean to you.   Plan a delicious meal for friends for no reason.    Volunteer at the soup kitchen.   Dance.  Pray.  Listen.   What else could make your life an adventure?   What would make you feel more alive?   How could your one, precious life be more holy?

ADVENTURE

Sun, rise on this day

like a flower unfolding

to loveliness, or to surprise.

Let there be a twist 

in the old path,

where a new view may

startle me with joy.

Help the child in me

skip with expectation,

ready for an adventure

of the heart.

Make me glad

to be really alive,

to embrace this wonder

that will never come again.