December 21, 2009
The first time I tuned into the Winter Solstice was my first winter in Canada. Living in the Alberta foothills that year, where the longing for a “White Christmas” was a moot point…it was a give.
The deeper yearning was for a return of the light. Two years later, having moved to the Saskatchewan prairie and experiencing the deathly frigid conditions of fourty below zero, the yearning for the light and warmth of Spring was even more acute. Now, living in moderate Oregon clime, the Solstice Event has less of an intense life threatening reality. The woodstove is burning. The gas furnace is a dependable backup. Temperatures are predicted to be above freezing tonight.
Two things come to mind. Perhaps they are related. Christian tradition, a primarily Northern Hemisphere telling of the story of Jesus has linked the birth of Jesus with the event of the Winter Solstice. This is the Summer Solstice for our brothers and sisters in the Southern Hemisphere!! Chile is harvesting tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers to ship to northern hemisphere markets. Mexico is harvesting asparagus shoots and shipping them north.
For me the meeting point of these realities is the realization that I am not the center of the universe. I see a very small slice of cosmic unfolding. The tilting of the earth, the orbit of the moon, the life/light giving reality of the sun brings me to a point of complete humility….It’s not about me. It’s about grace. Something bigger is going on.
I come closer to the writer of Genesis 1.14: And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,
This is doxology…praise. The writer is not quoting God. He is responding!!
…I am too!!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
December 17, 2009
another Advent poem
another Advent poem
Black Rook in Rainy Weather
By
Sylvia Plath
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident
To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.
Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent
Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then—
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent
By bestowing largess, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant
Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content
Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you dare to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.
By
Sylvia Plath
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident
To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.
Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent
Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then—
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent
By bestowing largess, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant
Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content
Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you dare to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
December 16, 2009
Another Advent poem:
Another Advent poem:
Mosaic of the Nativity
Serbia, Winter 1993
By
Jane Kenyon
On the domed ceiling God
Is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
And arguments:
“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?”
God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.
Serbia, Winter 1993
By
Jane Kenyon
On the domed ceiling God
Is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
And arguments:
“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?”
God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
December 15, 2009
another advent poem....
another advent poem....
Advent Calendar
By
Rowan Williams
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
By
Rowan Williams
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
Monday, December 14, 2009
December 14, 2009
Let the poets take a crack at opening up some doors and windows in our 'stable' houses as the dark season of Advent deepens:
Let the poets take a crack at opening up some doors and windows in our 'stable' houses as the dark season of Advent deepens:
The Second Coming
by
W. B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
December 9, 2009
Oregonian headline: 'We will remember all of them'
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
....Because you are precious in my sight,
and honored,
and I love you...
(God's memory as expressed in Isaiah 43)
Oregonian headline: 'We will remember all of them'
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
....Because you are precious in my sight,
and honored,
and I love you...
(God's memory as expressed in Isaiah 43)
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
December 3, 2009
Oregonian headline: Domestic abuse can be subtly sinister
....But he would not listen to her; and being stronger than she, he forced her and lay with her. Then Amnon was seized with a very great loathing for her; indeed, his loathing was even greater than the lust he had felt for her. Amnon said to her, "Get out!"
(2 Samuel 13.14-15)
Oregonian headline: Domestic abuse can be subtly sinister
....But he would not listen to her; and being stronger than she, he forced her and lay with her. Then Amnon was seized with a very great loathing for her; indeed, his loathing was even greater than the lust he had felt for her. Amnon said to her, "Get out!"
(2 Samuel 13.14-15)
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