Advent (Day 4)
The Bible is an often cacophonous, centuries-long conversation with God about the things of God, but some of its most powerful voices have spoken to us out of darkness. There is Job, who understood that God himself had “blocked” his way and “shrouded” his paths “in darkness” (Job 19:8). There is Jeremiah, lifelong witness to unimaginable...
Advent (Day 3)
What is the point of darkness? Have you ever wondered? In the beginning, we read, God created light, and he separated the light from darkness. Why didn’t he banish darkness? We might argue that darkness is not inherently good or bad. It simply is. But something deep within us fears otherwise. One of the plagues sent to torment the Egyptians...
Advent (Day 2)
In keeping with my "poem-each-Monday" tradition, here is a poem for you on this first Monday of Advent. These lines come from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. They remind me of this Advent paradox: in a wintery season of death and darkness we perceive birth and new life. Midwinter spring, indeed. from "Little Gidding"...
Advent (Day 1)
A Prayer for the First Sunday of Advent Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the...
Advent (a Preface)
There’s a tension in our hearts and in our culture regarding Christmas. On the one hand, we walk into a big-box store on October 31 and say, “Oh no. Already?” “Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is playing over the loudspeakers, and even the Christmas-lovers amongst us feel resistant. On the other hand, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve...
A Poem for Your Monday
Soon we take our seats around the table in order to say, "Thank you." Gerard Manley Hopkins shows us how. Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things - For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;...