Christmas Afterglow
Christmas Afterglow
savoring Christmas gifts not in a box,
sweet echoes of laughter,
dear traditions of music and story
Savoring Christmas gifts not in a box,
candlelight burning steady, strong
dear traditions of music and story
keeping and being kept, golden circle
Candlelight burning steady, strong
sweet echoes of laughter,
keeping and being kept, golden circle
Christmas afterglow.
In 2004, at an estate sale, I was drawn to a framed hand colored piece printed in County Wicklow, Ireland showing a mother looking out an open window at a young child running off to play. Printed below the picture is A Prayer for a Young Child. It was published in Songs from Leinster, by Winifred M. Letts.
“God keep my jewel this day from danger;
From tinker and pooka and black-hearted stranger.
From harm of the water and hurt of the fire .
From the horns of the cows going home to the byre.
From the sight of the fairies that maybe might change her.
From teasing the ass when he’s tied to the manger.
From stones that would bruise and from thorns of the briar.
From evil red berries that waken desire.
From hunting the gander and vexing the goat
From depths o’ seawater by Danny’s old boat.
From cut and from tumble — from sickness and weeping.
May God have my jewel this day in his keeping.”
I love the cadence of the old-fashioned words. I know how a mother’s heart yearns for her children’s protection and pours that out in prayer. As I read one of Amy Carmichael’s prayers, I was struck by the similarity. Even though she never had children she mothered those with whom she worked in India
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“Father, hear us, we are praying,
Hear the words our hearts are saying,
We are praying for our children…
Read the language of our longing,
Read the wordless pleadings thronging.
Holy Father for our children,
And wherever they may bide,
Lead them home at eventide.”
The opening and closing stanzas of
Amy Carmichael’s 19th century prayer for the children of the Dohnavur Fellowship in India
So today I am praying for mothers. I also pray for fathers. It is not always possible for us to protect our children from harm and hurt, from mistakes that they or someone else will make. I am glad to know that God reads the language of my longing, and hears the words of my heart.
“Happiness? The color of it must be spring green, impossible to describe until I see a just-hatched lizard sunning on a stone. That color, the glowing green lizard skin, repeats in every new leaf… The regenerative power of nature explodes in every weed, stalk, branch. Working in the mild sun, I feel the green fuse of my body, too. Surges of energy, kaleidoscopic sunlight through the leaves, the soft breeze that makes me want to say the word “zephyr”—this mindless simplicity can be called happiness.”
—Frances Mayes
What color is my happiness? I could easily say Frances Mayes has said it all, that yes, the color of my happiness is spring green seen in the glowing leaf and lizard, weed and branch. That green does fuel my energy, and I have always loved the dappled sunlight as I stand under swaying branches with leaves transformed into countless shades of green. Indeed, this “mindless simplicity can be called happiness”.
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However, on this Monday, I am soaked in the exhilaration that comes from Eastering. The Alleluias of Sunday morning and joy of my granddaughters as they experienced awe and wonder in all the Easter colors filled my happy cup to the brim. Several years ago, after experiencing a season of sharply declining vision due to a corneal disease, I received cornea transplants, the gift of 2 donor families. Two weeks following the first surgery, as I sat out by our pond, I suddenly realized I could see the cobalt blue of an iris. I was shot through with happiness and gratitude that I could see that flower clearly.
This day, a different way of seeing for me means receiving the gift of seeing through the eyes of my granddaughters as they marveled at golden Day Lilies, orange fish swishing in the pond, and royal purples of the Zinnias and Salvia. The colors of happiness are the same as those of gratitude, I think. Alleluia!
Walking in my winter garden, I see some things I might not notice when the drab palette comes back to green and growth. This mossy stone ball reminds me of an organic global map and prompts me on this Valentine’s morning to love all my neighbors, including those beyond my daily shores. I am called to widen my view, open my mind. I pray to know more, in order to better love.
“Love follows knowledge.” ~ Thomas Aquinas
When my granddaughter receives a present, she pulls off paper and bow, looks at her surprise with a giggle of pleasure, saying a sweet “Thank you!” The unwrapping and happy surprise come naturally. She has learned to say Thank You.
I have learned this, too.
If I can begin and end my day with gratitude, then the gift of that day has been carefully unwrapped, examined, delighted in, and acknowledged. God has given me a new day and I can choose to meet it by expressing my gratitude for the life and breath that lets me live it, as well as for work to do and strength to do it. Before I sleep again, I can choose to thank Him for what my day has held before I claim His peace for rest and refreshment. Those two bookends hold up my busy days and increase my awareness of being awash in grace.
Years ago I kept a gratitude journal, in which I wrote 3 things I was thankful for every day. I was recently given another calendar/ gratitude journal, this one leaving 5 spaces for each day. I love doing this. I like rereading those entries, because I am reminded of how many things I find for which to be thankful . Seldom are these related to possessions, although often for relationship. I am grateful for Plenty. I am grateful for enough. Gratitude and Contentment don’t mean the same, but they sure do look alike, so I am sure they are kin.
January 8, 2010: Today, I am grateful for a friend’s hug, herbs still growing in my January garden, starting a new book, making a memory with Skye and Lauren last night (movie night: Sound of Music), and these smiles…
A little feather was a reminder to me for years. I don’t remember where I found it or exactly when, although for a long time I kept it in a little birthday reminder book that was given to me in 1987, the year we moved to Indonesia. I put it there in the beginning because on that page there is a drawing of that same feather, right down to the size (tiny) and colors and markings (black and white). I was amazed at that. Usually the process is different…you find the object, then obtain or make its resemblance.
The other special thing about that feather is that it lived between the pages of the birthday calendar book where my oldest son’s name is written, January 13. It stayed there, through 2 moves in Jakarta, an international shipping, and 3 moves back in Texas plus all the shuffling of my kitchen desk here. Feathers usually don’t stay. They drift in and blow away.
But this little feather stayed between the pages and always caused me to smile when I came upon it. It reminded me of joy in small things, of hope, of lines of poetry and scripture, and that gifts can come when you open your hand and heart, and sometimes, the door. This year on January 13, I gave the little feather for a birthday gift.
…”That is the reason a bird can sing. On his darkest day, he believes in Spring”. (D. Malloch)
In the long way that we take, in our growing up, in the vicissitudes of life by which we are led into its meaning and its mystery, there are established for us, for each one of us, certain landmarks. They represent discoveries sometimes symbolizing the moment when we became aware of the purpose of our lives; they may establish for us our membership in the human frailty; they may be certain words that were spoken into a stillness within us the sound thereof singing forever through all the corridors of our being as landmarks; yes, each one of us has our own. No communication between people is possible if there is not some mutual recognition of the landmarks.
Howard Thurman in The Inward Journey
Stones and Feathers 