Happier and Holier New Year

Some of my friends don't see how they can have a happy new year with all the bad news about our country and our world.  Three of them told me that even before they get out of bed in the morning they listen to the news.  Well, stop doing that!  For a happier and holier new year, try less news, more prayer.

6 Snowy Days on this 6th Day of Christmas

I left to green grass and a frozen lake.  I returned to snow and a melted lake.
I've been away for a large family party and a 50th wedding anniversary.  Many warm memories and present joys.  Added to the wonderful Christmas Day celebration with my own immediate family, these Days of Christmas are overflowing with Gracious Love whom the season celebrates.

Green Christmas

When I walked this Christmas morning I was struck by how much of the lawns were still green.  The Lake is mostly frozen, but down in our cove (to the right of the picture) it has melted.  Sun came out bright and clear this afternoon.

Snow and Christmas so often go together in our part of the world, that it takes some deliberate effort this year to "think Christmas."  Outward signs have a huge impact on our interior life.  But as I walked I made myself think about Bethlehem and how Jesus was probably born in warm weather, if  shepherds had their sheep out in the fields.  A real place.  A real event.  Meaning takes over.

Love became flesh to wake the Divine within us.

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.