Ancient Christmas Card

At the time of sunrise

a ray grazes the notch on the left side

on Christmas Day.

A Feast-day of the Church,

the first season of the year.

The season of the Blessed Advent

of the Savior, Lord Christ.

Behold, he is born of Mary, a woman.

The writing in the picture is on a rock wall in  southwestern West Virginia.  Archeologist Robert Pyle has identified it as Celtic Ogam from 500-800 A.D.  The translation is by Barry Fell.  There are similar petroglyphs in the same area.  That Celts (Irish monks?) were here that early is astonishing. Even more astonishing is that they took the trouble to carve this Christmas message on rock, to share with the ages their faith in the Incarnation.
(The picture and the translation are from the cover of the March, 1983, issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine.)

Tilting Planet

What a great treat for the winter solstice!  Just before the sun came up we had a gorgeous display.  As I walked, the sun came up.  It is so very far from where it comes up in the summer.  I got to thinking as I walked that the earth has tilted now as far from the sun as it will for a year.  Now it begins to tilt back towards the sun.  I felt my body tilting with the earth. 

I thought of an old saying, "If you're not as close to God as you used to be, guess who moved!"  Sometimes we think that God is distancing Godself from us, when it is really we who have tilted away from Love.

Love Takes the Initiative

Love consists in this:

it is not we who loved God

but God loved us and sent his Son

to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away....

No one has ever seen God,

but as long as we love each other

God remains in us

and his love comes to its perfection in us.

I spent some time this morning in this chair in the wonderful sunshine reflecting on the First Letter of John, 4:7-12.  God always makes the first move.  When we let Gracious Love warm our hearts, we can be that Love for others.

 

Impatient

I have never before been able to save impatience inside in the winter.  This plant was blooming profusely when I brought in the plants that I regularly keep inside, so I brought it in also.  It continues to be impatient.

Like children, as Christmas draws near, we become impatient for the Day to arrive.  Advent has been a time of waiting and hoping.  We are eager for the celebrations of Christmas to make us more aware of Love's continuing presence within us.

Roman Summary

All this is frozen now after the frigid temperatures yesterday and last night's 0 degrees.

The very beginning of St. Paul's Letter to the Romans (1:1-7) rewards meditation as we approach Christmas.  In one very long sentence Paul summarizes all that he intends to say to the church in Rome (whom he has never met) about his personal call to be one of the apostles and about the Good News that he preaches about Jesus "who was descended from David according to the flesh, who was designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead." 

Disorderly Inn

Early yesterday morning I was able to catch that great moon.
In her diary entry for December 26, 1976, Dorothy Day wrote:
"A snow storm is upon us, the house is crowded like the inn where Christ was born.  Besides our community of 40 there is a Italian mother and family of 6, not to speak of some unidentified ones who suddenly appeared....
We are not a community, a Christian or a religious community that is.  We are an inn by the side of the road.  We have no common sense."
Dorothy quotes St. Teresa of Avila, "Life is a night spent in a disorderly inn."

Tempting God?

40 sea gulls huddled together in a patch of water surrounded by thin ice in front of my shore this morning.  They were striking in flight brightened by the sun against the blue sky, but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of that.

I meditated on Isaiah 7:10-14 where Matthew got his quote about Emmanuel.  The king's enemies are closing in on him and he is thinking about allying himself with the Assyrians for protection.  Isaiah is trying to talk him out of that plan and suggests he ask God for a sign.  The king says he doesn't want to bother God with the matter, but what he's really saying is that his mind is made up. 

How often we do that!  We want to do something so much that we don't really want any advice or sign to the contrary, even God's opinion.