Tag Archives: Advent
Advent Reflections: Getting In on the Going On
This Advent I’ve been reading a devotional book, Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent. Each Sunday we are stopping and sitting before the candles and wreath, reading from the Psalms or the Prophets. Offering prayers. Remembering our need of a Shepherd, of a Savior, the existence of joy despite the suffering. I’ve slowed down the decorating. We’ve […]
Advent Reflections: Christ has come and so I pray
Tonight I lit the Christ candle. Two weeks early. I knew I needed to do it. Advent compels us to wait for Christ to come. These rituals helps us remember, to mark time, to recognize It’s this marking of time, this stopping, that draws me into these rituals, into the words of liturgy. But rituals […]
The Twelve (or Eleven) Blogs of Christmas: The Art of the Undone
The goal was to write 12 blogs about Christmas, about the waiting, the hope, the anticipation, the celebration and all the expectations that get wrapped up in a little child in a manger. They just had to be written before, during, or following Christmas; they were to be written before the end of the year. […]
The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Happy New Year
Happy New Year! Somewhere in the world the calendar has turned over. 2011 is no more. 2012 has begun. Soon the rest of the world will slowly following, saying goodbye to all the memories, heartaches, joys, despair, sorrow, tears, laughter, achievements, dreams, desires, hopes and everything in between. Tomorrow (or today) we begin making our […]
The Twelve Blogs of Christmas – It’s Gonna Be Rough
A couple weeks ago as I held a very tired little girl in my arms, laying in bed with her trying to soothe her to sleep, I told her of all the fun things that were soon to be. We talked about Christmas and the cousins we’d see. Some coming to us. Some we’d travel […]
The Twelve Blogs of Christmas – Keeping Christ in Christmas
As if I could keep, contain him, I shout ”Merry Christmas” to any and all, but my holiday greeting smacks of self-righteousness and fear, not joy and peace. The things Christ came to expel and illuminate my greeting clings to with cold passion. Like cold water to a man found buried in the snow am I, having the gift of […]
The Twelve Blogs of Christmas – A Poem, Creation Part II
Prelude: nothingness; just water and spirit hovering and waiting hold up with expectation Spirit of God holds His breath in great anticipation for the Voice that soundeth like thunder that roareth like a lion Scene 1: darkness; now light oneness; now two water; now earth blandness; now lushness emptiness; now splendor stillness; now motion silence; […]
The Twelve blogs of Christmas – Let’s laugh
Let’s laugh. Not the sweet laugh of an innocent child. Not the controlled laugh you keep together in public. But that laugh that seeps out over your whole body. Uncontrollable. Embarrassing. Snorting. Hee-Hawwing. Cackling. Full of life. Pulsing. That laugh. When we think of this time of year we often think of joy. Joy and […]
