consider

A prayer waiting for the baby: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

"I’d rather have the mystery and the madness and the rains
cause hell’s the only place you can be free of all love’s pain

I have no claim on the future
so here I lay me down
and God is a friend to lovers
he makes the bone, the flesh, the ground
and he walks with us, make no mistake
and holds us when our hearts, they break

And I can hear the band of angels singing now
like a story from the page is read aloud
but this is not make believe"

all the miles
sandra mccracken

"There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good." storypeople

when in the early

when in the early morning hours
we wake up to unexpected spring,
i push the hair back from your forehead,
your even breathing the same
as in your just-before dream.

i, too, dreamed.
dreamed of waking up and seeing your face,
and then i did.
and the trees swayed outside the window,
and the warm wind creaked in the eaves.
and then i thought of a hundred other miracles
that i had never noticed before.

*****

photo by neil e. das

~Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love.~ psalm 107

Some days we can't seem to see far beyond the night. The darkness threatens to overcome us. I find myself always coming back to this, to whatever happens during the waiting of the long winter. To the quiet, sustaining, faithful love that keeps us all together. The glow of the houses, gold against the blue twilight. Branches creaking and bowing under the ice and snow, the howl of the wind. The promise of things at work, deep under the surface, the faith in things unseen.

This year the seasons are measured not by events, but in the counting of weeks. We are now to twenty-six. A few days ago I saw the wee baby spinning and spinning in the womb, held fast in a photograph the nurse took as he or she took a perfect pike position with feet over the head, sitting all to one side in my lop-sided belly. Hello, love.

We dream of spring, trying to be contented with the breathtaking blue sky and ice covered trees shining in the high, cold light. The sliver of winter moon and sharp stars. Even quieter than usual, quieter than ever before, we find poetry in the stillness of the long nights. In the hush of snow on the lawns and streets and roofs. We all hunker down, drink some tea, and wait. Trying to remember that eventually there will be the thaw of the brown earth, and first green buds that now hibernate safely under the surface. Through the weeks we are moving slowly along with the fears and joys and sorrows, remembering to give thanks and wait patiently for signs of spring, and to pray for who we will meet and and to surrender to the one who guides who we will become.

happysad

our small corner of the world wakes up to rain one morning. the bitter frost has decided to interrupt our one long september. i watch as those around me do life: raising kids, finding someone to spend the rest of their lives with, making vows, experiencing loss, wrestling with calling and career, seeking out their true names. i look around during this time of stillness and waiting and see that there is Someone telling a bigger story. and see that the redemption that is pushing its way through is not something i can presume to rush or understand. i think of the places where ache and falling apart haunt some with sleepless nights and terror filled days. what sense does this make in the story? yearning and hope together that the promises are true.

o come, o come.

we put on a new mix, a birthday mix. the kind of music that hits you so softly right in the gut. so beautiful that all you can do is cry, the feeling of home in songs first heard yet familiar. the wind gusts against the windows and i take up the task of baking again. the house has needed this. i have needed this; the return to works of the hands that allow the heart to meditate on other things. the sounds of things being accomplished in a slow and prayerful way, and the music that fills the warm house are a balm. small works of cultivation all around, the sense of simple joys.

the sound

three wise men and mary

from "Kings in Judea", a play in The Man Who Would Be King by Dorothy Sayers

***
Caspar: Alas! the more we know, the less we understand life. Doubts make us afraid to act, and much learning dries the heart. And the riddle that torments the world is this: Shall Wisdom and Love live together at last, when the promised Kingdom comes?

Melichor: We are rulers, and we see that what men need most is good government, with freedom and order. But order puts fetters on freedom, and freedom rebels against order, so that love and power are always at war together. And the riddle that torments the world is this: Shall Power and Love dwell together at last, when the promised Kingdom comes?

Balthazar: I speak for a sorrowful people--for the ignorant and the poor. We rise up to labour and lie down to sleep, and night is only a pause between one burden and another. Fear is our daily companion--the fear of want, the fear of war, the fear of cruel death, and of still more cruel life. But all of this we could bear if we knew that we did not suffer in vain; that God was beside us in the struggle, sharing the miseries of His own world. For the riddle that torments the world is this: Shall Sorrow and Love be reconciled at last, when the promised Kingdom comes?

Mary: These are very difficult questions--but with me, you see, it is like this. When the angel's message came to me, the Lord put a song in my heart. I suddenly saw that wealth and cleverness were nothing to God--no one is too unimportant to be His friend. That was the thought that came to me, because of the thing that happened to me. I am quite unlearned, yet the Word of God was spoken to me; and I was in deep distress, when my Baby was born and filled my life with love. So I know very well that Wisdom and Power and Sorrow can live together with Love; and for me, the Child in my arms is the answer to all the riddles.
***