Advent 2012 (First Sunday)
A prayer for the first Sunday of Advent: Father in heaven, you came to earth in the person of your Son, Jesus Christ. … Fill, we pray you, our every moment with his threefold advent. As then he came and now he comes and will one day come again, awaken us to the then and now and one day of his presence in this present moment. As...
Advent 2012 (When Waiting is Prayer)
As I write this, we are waiting for snow. I can hear rain on the metal roof of the red barn, but I am straining my ears for quiet. When the rain turns to snow (as the forecast promises it will), quietness will spread the news. Silence heralds the advent of snow. There were so many silent years between the words of Malachi and those of Matthew....
A Poem For Your Monday (And a Month of Advent Songs)
One year ago, I was waiting, holding on to these words from Psalm 81: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.” The date inked in beside those words in my Bible is August 23, 2011. By the time Advent began, I’d spent three months wringing out every drop of hope they had to give. I did...
A Poem For Your Monday
My firstborn holds my fourth and all I can think is how much time gives us and how much it takes away. I looked forward to autumn for ages, it seems, and now, suddenly, we have tipped over into frosts and bare trees. Is it any wonder, holding this tiny baby and reading this book to the nine-year-old, that I want to slow everything down? Time,...
A Poem For Your Monday
This poem is well suited to November's darker days. The changing of the clocks seems like an example of humanity's authority over its own environment, and yet it always reminds me just how out-of-our-control day and night, light and dark truly are. The days will grow shorter, no matter our efforts or anxieties. Nature will begin to die. We...
Bricks, Trees, and the Kingdom of God
A few people have recently asked if this place feels like home yet. I haven’t been sure of my answer. I know that it is home, but does it feel like home? Lying in bed last night, I finally puzzled it out. It seems presumptuous to call this place – the old brick house, the long maple-lined drive, the falling-down barn – my home. I haven’t...