2015 has been a year of new life for me. I wonder what God will help me make of 2016.
As I began writing I heard a powerful reading of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, Ring Out, Wild Bells, published in 1850. Here is the beginning and end of it:
Ring out wild bells, to the wild sky
The flying cloud, the frosty light
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true....
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand years of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
(I so wish I could share a picture with you. Maybe in the new year?)
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Monday, December 28, 2015
Merry 4th Day of Christmas
I've spent the afternoon sending Christmas cards. It feels good to remember and be in touch with people I haven't heard from in a year. I think it was Dickens who said, "Memory burns brightest at Christmas!"
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Merry 3rd Day of Chistmas!
Touch Hands. This poem by William Henry Harrison Murray is an old favorite of mine, made more meaningful by recent events:
Ah, friends, dear friends, as years go on
and heads get gray,
how fast the guests do go!
Touch hands, touch hands,
with those that stay.
Strong hands to weak,
old hands to young,
around the Christmas board, touch hands.
The false forget, the foe forgive,
for every guest will go
and every fire burn low
and cabin empty stand.
Forget, forgive, for who may say
that Christmas day may ever come
to host or guest again.
Touch hands!
Ah, friends, dear friends, as years go on
and heads get gray,
how fast the guests do go!
Touch hands, touch hands,
with those that stay.
Strong hands to weak,
old hands to young,
around the Christmas board, touch hands.
The false forget, the foe forgive,
for every guest will go
and every fire burn low
and cabin empty stand.
Forget, forgive, for who may say
that Christmas day may ever come
to host or guest again.
Touch hands!
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Merry 2nd Day of Christmas!
Family has changed enormously over the centuries. As we see more and more variety, it might be good to remind ourselves that love, not biology, is what makes a family.
That certainly was true for Mary and Joseph. He was not the biological father of Jesus, but in love he accepted Jesus as his son and showed a father's love and care for the boy.
That certainly was true for Mary and Joseph. He was not the biological father of Jesus, but in love he accepted Jesus as his son and showed a father's love and care for the boy.
Friday, December 25, 2015
Merry Christmas!
A little girl
Had wandered in the night, and now within
The shadows of a broken stall, was waiting,
While the night winds and the breath of time
Were moving over her...
Starlight moving imperceptibly.
The drift of time. And then a moment's fall,
The last that we should know of loneliness.
A sign, unheard within the dark, and then...
She wrapped him up in swaddling clothes
and laid him in a manger.
And then
She knelt and held Him close against her heart,
And in the midnight, adoration fused
With human love, and was not separate....
This is God's chosen way with men,
To take men's way: and so the streets she walks
And all the roads, the shepherd and the shepherds'
Sheep, the winds, the firelight, Israel's hills,
Will find just this, no more, a woman plain
Upon the earth, and in her arms, a Child.
(from John W. Lynch's A Woman Wrapped in Silence)
Had wandered in the night, and now within
The shadows of a broken stall, was waiting,
While the night winds and the breath of time
Were moving over her...
Starlight moving imperceptibly.
The drift of time. And then a moment's fall,
The last that we should know of loneliness.
A sign, unheard within the dark, and then...
She wrapped him up in swaddling clothes
and laid him in a manger.
And then
She knelt and held Him close against her heart,
And in the midnight, adoration fused
With human love, and was not separate....
This is God's chosen way with men,
To take men's way: and so the streets she walks
And all the roads, the shepherd and the shepherds'
Sheep, the winds, the firelight, Israel's hills,
Will find just this, no more, a woman plain
Upon the earth, and in her arms, a Child.
(from John W. Lynch's A Woman Wrapped in Silence)
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
The Gift of Life
Being in the hospital, I missed last Christmas. This year as I decorate and send cards, I am often deeply moved at the thought that I am alive to do these Christmas things again.
Life is the best Christmas gift, not only life in the Spirit, but also life in my body. A new heart in every way.
Life is the best Christmas gift, not only life in the Spirit, but also life in my body. A new heart in every way.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Brilliant Religious Thinker
Yesterday I said that "2nd Isaiah" probably came to his confession of one God along with other Jews in the Babylonian Exile. Upon further reflection I like to think, rather, that he was a brilliant, unique, religious thinker. (I thought of Einstein in science.) In 2nd Isaiah's own deep prayer and individual meditation, he becomes convinced that there is only one God. He feels impelled to tell others. He is bold enough to put in the mouth of God these words: "Besides me there is no god."
For 2nd Isaiah the one God is responsible for the entire cosmos, the God of the natural world and the God of history. This one God has the care of all the nations (gentiles) and intends to save them all. 2nd Isaiah links monotheism with universal salvation.
For 2nd Isaiah the one God is responsible for the entire cosmos, the God of the natural world and the God of history. This one God has the care of all the nations (gentiles) and intends to save them all. 2nd Isaiah links monotheism with universal salvation.
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