What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year… is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born again even in us and our own snowbound, snow-blind longing for him. ~ Frederich Buechner, from Secrets in the Dark
Most days begin with prayer and thanksgiving – for years now I have kept a gratitude journal. This reminds me to focus on all the everyday ordinary blessings I receive as grace. When we gather for a meal as a family, we hold hands and give thanks for our food. Nora calls this our “Maymen.” The table is the same one I mention below in an excerpt from my blog post in 2014.
I am remembering childhood meals around my Terrell grandparent’s table in Smith County, Texas. There were hearty breakfasts with farm fresh eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, dinners (at lunchtime) that often included peas and tomatoes from their garden and an iron skillet of cornbread cut into wedges.There were suppers, often the same food reheated or a bowl of soup, and Sunday dinners after church. There were holiday meals at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas where the table and kitchen were both filled with chicken and dressing or a ham, plus those garden fresh vegetables which had been put up into canning jars. To follow, there would be an assortment of sweets – cookies, sweet potato, pecan, and mince pies, and often a pound cake. The food and occasion might vary, but there was always the same beginning: This, too, was something I could count on. Papa Terrell would say grace. Today we may say a blessing or give thanks, but he always said grace. The words were always the same, and rattled off so quickly I could never understand them. But his posture spoke to my heart with no need for words. Over 70 years later, now I see him clearly in my mind: gray head bent forward and bowed in humility.
“We offer grace at table as a form of waiting with confidence…reciting such a prayer is sometimes referred to as a way of preparing to receive all that has been granted to us. We offer grace in amazement that even the good things we have rejected are being offered again. And then we eat, and the food meets an earthly need of our souls, and we are made whole.” – Cynthia Rigby, W.C. Brown Professor of Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary*
For me, the calendar days designated to Thanksgiving are a wonderful approach to beginning of Advent exactly because of this waiting with confidence…preparing to receive all that has been granted to us. Our family will gather once again around the old oak table, the very same one that Grandma loaded with food and where Papa said grace.
This.
Here.
Now.
edge of light
color upon color
layers of beauty
grace upon grace
When it is dark outside and lights are turned on within, I can see the beauty of this stained glass only by standing outside. When I am inside darkened space, I see breathtaking art because there is sunlight outside. The color is always there, but I have to stand where I face the light to see it.
Last week Joe and I enjoyed a trip with some friends to hear the history of a plantation house a little over an hour from our home. Dozens of trips to and from College Station when our son was a graduate student there took us on a highway almost at the edge of the acreage where the house is located, but we had never been able to go inside or learn about the important place in Texas History held by Liendo Plantation. The grounds were lovely and shady on a very hot day, peacocks strutted and called, a beautiful herd of Red Brahman cattle grazed beyond the fences, a one-hundred-year-old black walnut tree towered, and a small pergola at the back of the house was covered with wisteria that must have been breathtaking when it bloomed in late Spring. I took some pictures of the massive twisted vines from one side, but Joe found this on the other side. The tiny birdhouse with a heart shaped hole must have been set there years ago. Through the years, the vines have twisted and turned their way through the house and out the “door.” No room for birds there anymore. It is a novel picture, but disturbing thought.
What do we allow to grow inside our hearts and homes, filling them so that home is no longer a place of rest, refuge and hospitality? I wonder how long the vines grew before birds could no longer nest there. We have moved almost 2 dozen times in the over 50 years of our marriage and have recently moved again. The houses may change, but as we settle and fill each with faith and love and open doors, it becomes home. I hope to never allow something to grow that pushes the things that belong there away.
Sunrise, June 11, 2016
“By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.
The Avowal by Denise Levertov
For about 40 years I have taped these words inside a cabinet door or in another place, always close to the spot I make my coffee so that I see it every morning. I recently removed it to take with me to a new kitchen. Mornings will still mean an early cup of coffee and a new day for this resolution. It reads:
All this day I will realize that I am a child of God. His love is round about me, underneath are the everlasting arms. I will be honest and true in everything I say and do. I believe that all things work together for good for those who love God. I will try to replace all bitterness, hatred, resentment, over-anxiety, and fear with the spirit of understanding, tolerance, love, patience, and trust. Behind all that comes, God’s love and wisdom will be present to strengthen and sustain.
_ Copied, author unknown. I clipped the words from a newsletter published by Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, around 1977. Bruce Willcox was pastor of Willshire, a church we previously attended when we lived in Dallas. Our youngest son, Ben was born in 1973 so his baby dedication was held there.
Recently, we had a small pot of Calla Lilies sitting in our kitchen window sill. I loved watching the blooms open, each tinted uniquely in ivory blushed with a bit of rose. I like these little flowers as well as their showier Christmastime companions, poinsettias,
As I packed away so many of the symbols of Christmas with decorations and trees, I was glad to keep plants like these, watering them, watching them grow, and enjoying their symbolism and stories. The brilliant red poinsettia has its story – called the “flower of the holy night,” standing for a little girl who wept on her way to church on Christmas Eve because she had no gift to bring. As she knelt on the ground to pray, she saw this lovely plant and gladly took its red beauty into the church as her Christmas gift to the Christ child.
But the calla lily plays a role in the Christian Easter service as a symbol of Jesus’ resurrection. In many paintings and other works of art throughout history, it has also been depicted with the Virgin Mary or Angel of Annunciation, associated with holiness, faith and purity.
I am thankful for little altars in our home where a flower or a rock or a bit of glass is something I can see and touch, reminding me of the sacred in all our ordinary days.
Stones and Feathers 