Loveliness Shines

"Shine your love on us each dawn
 and gladden all our days.
 Balance our past sorrows
 with present joys
 and let your servants, young and old,
 see the splendor of your work.
 Let your loveliness shine on us,
 and bless the work we do,
 bless the work of our hands."
                    Psalm 90:14-17

"A light of revelation for the Gentiles
 and glory to your people Israel."
                            Luke 2:32

All ONE

I'm sitting on the sand and looking around me.  About ten yards away is a young couple.  He has a bad limp, but every once in a while he limps down and begins very carefully to enter the water. Then he turns and lets himself fall in backwards.  His wife never goes in the water, just reads.
I close my eyes and become aware of God living within me.  I start to pray for the young man.  I become aware of God living in him and in his wife.  I become aware of God living in all these people sitting and lying and swimming and walking.
I think of God loving me and enabling me to love God with God's own love.  I think of this Love happening in all these people on the beach, uniting all of us to one another.  The image that comes up in my imagination is a sort of blob and the words that come into my head: It's all ONE.

Surf Seams

The seams where the surf is stitched together.

Half Hermit by the Sea

Now that I am retired I find that I move easily into vacation mode.  When I was working and went on vacation it would usually take me about two days to wind down and relax.
Since I was going by myself this year, I wanted to see if I could keep my half hermit lifestyle at a Caribbean beach.  I went to the beach in the morning and again in the afternoon.  Walking in the surf was like my long morning walk here at home, kind of a continuation of my earlier prayer.  I let my mind wander.  I would sometimes become completely absorbed in the sound and splash of the surf.
When I went into the warm water I felt carried away.  I love being in water.  I feel it's where I be-long.  Our bodies are mostly water.  Like God, it is around me and in me.  I would stand in the relatively calm water up to my neck and just look at the beauty in all directions.  The hills to the north slope down gently into each other and into the ocean.  There are white houses on the slopes.  Here the ocean view is not an awesome expanse of water.  It is broken up by several small islands at some distance and near them high waves crashing against a long line of reefs.  I turn and turn in the comfortable water and am lifted out of myself.

Beach Walking

The snow started before I woke up and has not stopped all day.  When I went for my morning walk the snow plow had not been through and no vehicles had been on the road in our part of the neighborhood.  I love walking through freshly fallen snow and kicking it up in front of me.
Four days ago I was walking in the surf, kicking the warm water up in front of me.  This was a great beach for walking, more than a mile long.  Breathtaking scenery.  This picture is looking south.  North there are some lovely hills.  The view toward the sea is enhanced by several small islands and waves crashing on distant reefs.
My plan was to swim, walk the beach and lay in the sun.  Plan was a success.  A constant wind kept it from feeling too hot.  Some parts of the beach were less crowded than others, so it was always possible to find some quiet space.  It was impossible to be there without finding God in the beauty of it all.

Continuing Christmas

The Christmas cactus finally bloomed!  I was away on vacation.  I guess, being a cactus, it thrives on inattention.  This plant belonged to a woman who died in the early 70's and her husband gave it to me.  It has never been as glorious as it is right now. 
Christmas and Epiphany help us to think about who Jesus is.  The rest of the year we reflect on what he does.  The liturgy for this 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time continues our Christmas and Epiphany reflection on  who Jesus is.  We use John's Gospel because of all the Gospels he stresses the mystery of God in human flesh.
The Gospel writer sees that Jesus provides unique and unprecedented access to God because Jesus shares in God's character and identity.  It is as the Word-Made-Flesh that Jesus brings God fully to the world.  Jesus doesn't simply speak God's words and do God's works; rather he does those things because he is God's Word and God's Work in the world.  All his words and works, his whole life and his death and resurrection, make God known to the world.  From the beginning to the end of his Gospel John bears witness to the gift of Love that God gives the world in the Word-Made-Flesh.
(Much of that last paragraph comes from the introduction to the Gospel according to John in the excellent The New Interpreters' Study Bible  published by Abingdon.)

Worship

And bowing down the Christmas cactus worshipped Him.  This very large cactus set these buds about three or four weeks ago.  But they don't seem to want to open.  The plant is in the sunniest window of the house, south facing.  By now I would have expected the buds to open or fall off.
I displayed a white Christ Child, Mary, and Joseph beneath it.  Even if the plant refuses to open up, at least it is bowing down over Jesus.
When I used Matthew 2: 1-12 for prayer last Sunday, my mind, or maybe my heart, became lost in  the Magi's attitude before the baby.  I was surprised since there are so many wondrous elements in this fabulous story.  I found myself with these foreign stargazers bowing down, worshipping the Divine Child.  God in the flesh of a baby.  In chapter 1 Matthew had already identified the child as Emmanuel, God-With-Us.
It seems that the Greek verb that Matthew uses means more than bowed.  I've seen it translated knelt, prostrated, lay face down.  Before I pray in the morning I do some exercises.  I start by lying face down on the floor.  Each morning this week as I did that I prayed "And falling down they worshipped him." 
I've tried during the week to analyze what I experienced last Sunday as I was caught up -- or brought down -- into the Magi's worship.  The best I can say is that I was feeling far below the God-Child, so much less than this Baby who is the Holy One.