Where are You Standing?

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This is a fragment of a very old leaded glass window featuring painted glass and the one word “Blessed.”  I wish I knew the whole story of the window it came from, but I know only a little.  In the late 1970’s, my husband was approached about repairing vintage leaded glass windows which had been purchased in England by a couple who were members of our church .  They had donated the windows, where they were to be used in specific places inside the church.  This meant they must be cut to fit those places.  Joe disliked trimming the old windows, but did so.  There were many small pieces left, and this piece was given to me.  It now rests on a tiny easel in my kitchen window alongside another piece of stained glass. Recently, when someone cleaned the window sill, the glass was put back on the easel backward.

When I noticed the mistake, I reached for my camera and only after I looked at the image did I realize that the glass might be backward, but the reflection on the shiny granite beneath it is right.

How many times do I not recognize how blessed I am, simply because I need to look in a different way?

” ‘What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.'”   C.S. Lewis, in The Magician’s Nephew

Threshold

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The day of Epiphany is the 12th day of Christmas, a day for remembering the visit of the Magi to the home of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus. This was a time of discovery, a time of finding what they had been seeking. Although we are not told how they lived out their discovery, only that they returned by a different way, I like to believe that part of that “different” way was not only to avoid Herod, but because they were beginning a new journey of change.  They had come to, and crossed a threshold.

As I enter the new year, I, too, am crossing a threshold.  I am moving from one place in my life to another. I do not always know where my steps take me, but I can trust that light will be given me for the way.

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Blessing the Threshold

This blessing
has been waiting for you
for a long time.

While you have been
making your way here
this blessing has been
gathering itself
making ready
biding its time
praying.

This blessing has been
polishing the door
oiling the hinges
sweeping the steps
lighting candles
in the windows.

This blessing has been
setting the table
as it hums a tune
from an old song
it knows,
something about
a spiraling road
and bread
and grace.

All this time
it has kept an eye
on the horizon,
watching,
keeping vigil,
hardly aware of how
it was leaning itself
in your direction.

And now that
you are here
this blessing
can hardly believe
its good fortune
that you have finally arrived,
that it can drop everything
at last
to fling its arms wide
to you, crying
welcome
welcome
welcome.

– Jan Richardson

Jan L. Richardson is an artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. She frequently collaborated with her husband, the singer/songwriter Garrison Doles, until his sudden death in December 2013. 

This Day, This Life

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As new calendars appear on our desks and the days begin to fill with scheduling and appointments, it is possible for us to slip into a feeling that one day is like the next, whatever our jobs or commitments.  But that is never the case.  Just as each snowflake is separate and unique and  beautiful, so are our days. Each new day may unfold within a familiar framework, but the minutes and hours it offers are unlike any other and will never be repeated. Of course, the same is true for each of our lives.

From Morning Prayer to Evensong, help me Lord, to treasure my moments and my days.  May I spend them well, because this is the way I am spending my life.

“How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.”  ~Annie Dillard, in The Writing Life

 

Sacrament of Broken Seed

I like to choose a word at the beginning of each year that I can come back to, like a touchstone in my pocket, over and over again. My word for this new year is ENCOURAGE.

There are times when we can encourage and offer strength to another. There are also times when we are the ones who have need of receiving encouragement, accepting offers of help. I have long loved the following poem.  I am reminded of the power of encouragement when I see the scarlet flash of a cardinal and watch him and his mate choose to nest in our garden.

At the Winter Feeder

His feather flame doused dull  by icy cold,  the cardinal hunched  into the rough, green feeder  but ate no seed.  Through binoculars I saw  festered and useless  his beak, broken  at the root.  Then two: one blazing, one gray,  rode the swirling weather  into my vision  and lighted at his side.  Unhurried, as if possessing  the patience of God,  they cracked sunflowers  and fed him  beak to wounded beak  choice meats.  Each morning and afternoon  the winter long,  that odd triumvirate,  that trinity of need,  returned and ate  their sacrament  of broken seed.

~  John Leax, professor of English and poet-in-residence at Houghton College:

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Prayer for the New Year



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O God of new beginnings,

You wipe away our tears

and call us to care for one another

Give us eyes to see our gifts,

hearts to embrace all creation,

and hands to serve you every day of our lives.

~a common Christian Prayer for the New Year

 

 

Unexpected Discovery

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One of my granddaughters likes to leave me little surprises in unexpected places that I find after she has left. Once it was a bright blue ribbon tied on the spiral binding of one of my cookbooks.  Another time she left a small rose from their dressup trunk The rose was perched on the crosspiece underneath a wicker rocker in the room where she sleeps when she is visiting. How long did it take you to be surprised to find a candy cane hooked over Joseph’s arm in our mantel Nativity?

When I find these unexpected signs Maddie leaves for me, I laugh and reach for my gift. In these days following Christmas, I also find joy in gifts that tell me again that God is with me – a brilliant sunset on Christmas Day,the scarlet flash of a cardinal on a bare tree limb, memories of all the ways He has come to me in the past.  I want to pay attention so I don’t miss the signs.  I want to reach for the gift.

Standing Still in the Light

  • IMG_1514The first step to peace is to stand still in the light. ~ George Fox

 

There is a hush in the house that is different in quality this morning, after yesterday’s gathering for Christmas Day.  Before I go back to the kitchen to finish cleanup from our festive meal, before I make a grocery list to ready for our other children and grandchildren who arrive this week, even before I sit down at the piano to enjoy playing the old carols again just for Joe and me, I claim moments  of this quiet to sit in the dark with only the twinkling tree lights and be still.  I hear again in my mind the words of the song often heard sung around the world at this time of year. “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.?

 

 

Christmas Eve: Relationship

The final figure has been hung in my Advent shadow box. In our Nativity scenes, the manger holds a baby. It is Christmas Eve, the time of laboring, receiving.  As waiting and expectancy end, the intense work so aptly named labor begins, the urgency of a baby’s entrance into our world gives way to embrace. With the birth of our granddaughter this year so fresh in my mind, I think of holding her minutes after birth.  So small and precious in my arms, so helpless, yet holdiing such power over my heart. In the hush of those moments, relationship locked and sealed forever. Relationship that began the moment I heard of her coming, that grew so sweetly when I saw ultrasound images, became one that will endure past physical life.

It is in that way Christ came to us. In that picture of receiving Him that we see God’s intention for relationship. We don’t just know he is coming . We welcome Him into our hearts.

 

IMG_1479This Nativity belongs to our youngest son. He first set it up when he was very small. As a boy, he built the little shed from scraps of wood shingles.  Now it sits in his own home, where his daughter holds the figures as she discovers her very first Christmas.

 

 

Welcome

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This bamboo nativity is one we got when we lived in Indonesia , along with the chest beneath it. If I titled today’s post Selamat Datang, many of you would not recognize the greeting, but if I smiled, spoke the words, and held out my arms, you would receive the message. Whether the creche is made of bamboo, or wood, or carved in stone, or simply made of sticks, we recognize its meaning because of the posture of the figures and their arrangement.  Christ’s coming broke down the walls that separate us, the barriers of difference and indifference, the stones in our path to God and to each other.  As we welcome Him, we learn a language that goes beyond speech.  We are offered a language of love.

Rekindling the Light

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Solstice has reminded us of the shortest day and the longest night. It is also a turning point. As dawn gilded the sky this morning days begin to grow again., Advent, with its 4 candles, is also seen as an observance of this rekindling

When I  light these candles, I reflect on the coming of the Light of Christ.  Can I do so with the intention of sharing this  light? .

What are the ways in which I can help make the world lighter? How do I bring light into the lives of those around me?