by Christie Purifoy | Dec 19, 2012 | Advent, God's Love, guest post, Jesus, motherhood, Uncategorized
I met Amy at The Festival of Faith and Writing in Michigan last spring. During a five minute chat, we discovered we’d attended the same college, attended the same college-town church, majored in English lit., and had recently found ourselves at home in episcopal churches. Needless to say, we kept in touch.
I’m delighted to share this advent story at Amy’s place today:
I know that Advent should include repentance. In fact, repentance is supposed to be an integral part of any advent observance. The idea, I think, is that we must prepare ourselves to receive Christ.
I’ve mostly avoided thinking about it.
I far prefer to meditate on ideas like wonder or anticipation.
If I think much about sin at all it’s to imagine the sin out there. For instance, the dark injustice of human trafficking or the world orphan crisis.
I’d rather not confront the darkness in my own heart.
Until the parents of twenty first-graders walked into a nightmare.
…
You can read the rest of the story here. While you’re there, check out Amy’s own beautiful advent series. Like me, she’s posting every day this season.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 13, 2012 | Advent, God's Love, motherhood, Uncategorized, Waiting
(This post was originally published last year.)
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.
Explore the growing collection of Advent imagery here.
Click here to subscribe to There is a River and here to connect with There is a River on facebook.
by Christie Purifoy | Nov 26, 2012 | Advent, Family, God's Love, Grateful, motherhood, Pennsylvania, Poetry, Pregnancy, Uncategorized, Waiting
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 not know when (or even if) we would be moving on from Florida, but I longed to leave the desert behind. I was not yet pregnant, but I had a daughter who prayed every night for a sister. I had only imprecise dreams of what the future might hold, but I kept my mouth open and imagined a cup running over.
I wrote every day that Advent, and I shared it all with you here.
Before I’d even packed away the Christmas tree, I was pregnant, and the events which would bring us to Pennsylvania had been set in motion. I celebrated the new year with anticipation, though I still knew nothing of a baby girl or a red brick farmhouse.
Such a year it has been. Such a year.
And now – now, it is a season for singing. And, so, like last year, I will have something for you here each day of Advent.
We will wait and sing, together.
Magnificat
I am singing my Advent anthem to you, God: How all year
I’ve felt your thrusts, every sound and sight stabbing
like a little blade – the creak of gulls, the racket
as waves jostle pebbles, the road after rain, shining
like a river, the scrub of wind on the cheek, a flute
trilling – clean as a knife, the immeasurable chants of green,
of sky: messages, announcements. But of what? Who?
Then last Tuesday, a peacock feather (surprise!)
spoke from the grass; Flannery calls hers “a genuine
word of the Lord.” And I – as startled as Mary, nearly,
at your arrival in her chamber (the invisible
suddenly seen, urgent, iridescent, having put on light
for her regard) – I brim over like her, quickening. I can’t
stop singing, thoroughly pregnant with Word!
– Luci Shaw
by Christie Purifoy | Nov 12, 2012 | God's Love, Poetry, prayer, Seasons
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 will too, come to that.
This poem suggests that embracing the inevitable (whether it be the changing of the seasons or death itself) need not be an act of despair. It can be an act of great trust.
Technically, I should call this a pastoral poem, but, to me, it always reads more like prayer.
Let Evening Come
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
– Jane Kenyon
(I also shared this poem last November.)
by Christie Purifoy | Nov 1, 2012 | Family, God's Love, motherhood, Pennsylvania, Scripture, Uncategorized
Only seven weeks old, and she’s seen her first hurricane. Actually, “heard” might be more accurate. I’m not sure any of us held her up to the window to watch the rain fall, but we were both awake to hear the wind in the night.
It was a wind to make you thank heaven for thick brick walls, even while you wondered if the storm windows would hold.
She breathes warmth and peace into the side of my neck, and I am newly determined: when storm clouds hover I will, like this baby girl, expect to be cared for.
I will practice hope.
I will assume Jesus meant it when he said we have no reason to worry.
When Hurricane Sandy threatened to cut off our power and water, I lined up baby bottles on my window ledge. They were filled to the brim with clean water. Then I went and filled a few more containers with water. And then, a few more. Possibly, a few more after that.
Does the Lord of the storm (Job 40:6) love me any less?
“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.”
(Psalm 107: 28-29)
(photo by yours truly)
by Christie Purifoy | Oct 19, 2012 | Family, God's Love, Grateful, Home, motherhood, Pennsylvania, Poetry, Seasons, Uncategorized
A few mornings ago, I heard an interview on NPR with the poet Mary Oliver. Speaking of the experiences which inspire her poetry, she said, “The world doesn’t have to be beautiful to work. But it is beautiful. Why?”
Some questions don’t need to be answered in order to open our eyes. There is wisdom to be had just in the asking.
We tend to think of the world’s pain as the senseless thing. The meaningless thing. But what of the world’s beauty? Whatever did we do to deserve autumn leaves? The smell of a campfire? The honey-wine taste of a pear?
This is the view from my window. With apologies to The Photographer (who I’m sure can look at this shot and know exactly how I should have tuned my camera settings), it’s a view to make you catch your breath.
Sitting in the chair by this window, I notice just how tired I am. And I can hear the boys fighting on the other side of the house. And then the baby starts to cry, and it’s time (again!) to fiddle with formula and plastic feeder bits and bobs because my body is fundamentally broken.
But, all I can think is “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
My bed faces a set of three windows. The glass is so old it’s wavy, and the autumn colors outside look like they’ve been spun through a kaleidoscope. Sitting there, I can still hear those boys fighting, and I can see the fearsome dust bunnies lurking in every corner of this room, and, oh, I am so, so tired.
But, again, all I can think is “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Following a season of drought, my life today is one of excess. I am too tired. I am too happy. I am so disappointed. Those boys are too loud and will they ever learn to play without fighting??
But, it’s the beauty I can’t get over. The over-the-top, cup-runneth-over beauty that is everywhere in my life right now.
So, yes, I am tired and my house is dirty and I wish I had the time and energy to cook all those mouth-watering recipes I just pinned on pinterest, but I open my eyes just the tiniest bit, and the only words I can think of are these:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
