by Christie Purifoy | Dec 13, 2011 | Advent, Family, motherhood, Waiting
It is St. Lucia’s Day, the day the poet John Donne called “the year’s midnight.” It is a short, dark day even here in Florida, thanks to a windy, rainy nor’easter.
The firstborn and I are determined to mark the day as they would in Sweden. Whether this is because of our drop of shared Swedish blood, or because we are firstborn girls, I’m not sure. But, we do it.
We make a crown: soft wool felt for the evergreen leaves, battery-powered candles for the light. She lays out a white nightgown and red ribbon sash while I set her alarm clock. She’s never used an alarm clock, and I must show her three times how to turn it off. She practices her lines for me one more time: “St. Lucia invites you to breakfast!”
We forego the traditional saffron buns, but the gingerbread cookie replacements are prepped and waiting on a tray.
“Goodnight, Lucy/Lily,” I say, as I shut her bedroom door on the eve of Lucy’s day.
Tiptoeing through the dark hallway, straining my eyes to avoid the Lego casualties scattered across the tile, I remember how dark my days were before this girl. Those days of praying and waiting and living without.
I remember, too, how bright the full moon was that winter night when I first knew that she was on her way. Nine years ago it was a bright light of answered prayer, of hopes fulfilled.
It is winter again. I know now that when the days are short and the nights are long, the only right way to see ahead is to look back.
So, I look back and remember: “… weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” Psalm 30:5.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 12, 2011 | Advent, Jesus, Poetry, Seasons
On this third Monday of Advent, a poem by one of my favorite writers, Louise Glück.
Winter can tempt us to despair. Cold, death, endless waiting. It is easy to stop believing in spring.
He did tell us how it would be. “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,” he said. And he was right. The seeds of resurrection were planted in these dark days before Christmas.
Even our winters are redeemed.
Snowdrops
Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring –
afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.
– Louise Glück
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 11, 2011 | Advent, prayer
A prayer for this third Sunday of Advent:
Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
from The Book of Common Prayer
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 10, 2011 | Advent, Music
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 9, 2011 | Advent, Jesus, Waiting
The wintery cold has been sinking lower and lower on the weatherman’s map each night. Finally, the chill of that blue boundary line reaches down to embrace even Florida. The wind feels icy now, though the weatherman says that the still-ripening oranges on our backyard tree are safe.
For me, winter arrives just as this season of waiting begins to feel less than joyful. Not quite two weeks in, waiting feels more like real waiting, less like the thrilling performance of waiting I experience during Advent’s first week. In other words, it feels difficult. Wearying.
Even the words I write come less easily. Like carving them, slowly, out of ice.
The truth is, we spend so much of our lives waiting. For some of us, Advent seems to last for years, rather than days. We cry “Come, Lord, come!” And we keep on crying, caught somewhere in the perpetual coming but not yet here. Always Advent, never Christmas. Or, as Lewis wrote so memorably in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, “Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”
As a writer (well, honestly, as a human being!) it is tempting to set up permanent camp in the land of answers. Somehow, Advent gives me permission to ask questions without worrying whether or not I also have the answers. During Advent, I remember that it is good to voice our most pressing questions aloud and then sit in the quietness that follows.
“My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your word. My eyes fail, looking for your promise; I say, ‘When will you comfort me?’ … How long must your servant wait?”
(Psalm 119: 81, 84).
Perhaps because Advent prompts me to reflect on the heavy realities of darkness, silence, and waiting, it also pushes me past my usual zone of comfortable optimism, my I’m-okay-you’re-okay-we’re-all-okay assumption. Truthfully, many of us are not okay.
Some of us are hurting right now, and some of us are not, but during Advent, we join together to sing an ancient refrain. One that is so powerful, so universal, it echoes backwards and forwards in time, from the cross to David and back to us today: “But you, O Lord, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me” (Psalm 22: 19).
