Mary, did you know?

I have quite a few friends with new babies this Christmas. Some are believers, some are not. But each one of them knows the feeling— because every mother on the planet knows the feeling— that is captured in this lyric: “The child that you delivered will soon deliver you.” I remember the first time I heard this song. My dear friend Donna Bullock, who was, for years, a member of our church, and went onto sing the lead in Ragtime on Broadway, was standing alone at the mike in front of the tree. And as she sang, and I held Remy in my arms— her 10-month old head still bandaged in gauze—I felt as if a throughline had been drawn straight from my mothering soul to the flashpoint of history. I wish she were here to sing it for you now. I hope Kathy Mattea will do.


Pax
Heather

Your children are not your children

I finished putting up the Christmas decorations last night and found myself a little sad. My kids are grown now and no amount of ornaments or angels or twinkling lights can bring back those many joyful years of “making Christmas” for the children. But of all the things we did for them throughout the Advent season— the baking, the caroling, the viewing of insane displays of lights, the skating, the snow trips, the gathering of gifts for the homeless, the parties, the Advent calendars, the screenings of A Christmas Story, and later, Love, Actually— none was likely as important as the reminder that Kahlil Gibran gives us each day in his book The Prophet. Knowing this, believing this, is the greatest gift we’ve given Graham and Remy. May those of you with young children consider the wisdom found here….

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You many give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that his arrows
may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves the bow that is stable.

And with that we continue our journey to the manger
Heather

Let it be so

This early 20th-century painting of the annunciation seems to me to transcend time and place. This Mary could be any woman, this angel the messenger of any sort of epiphany— a new wisdom, a haunting reversal, clarity alone in the midnight hours. The sort of inescapable truth about our lives to which we can only reply, as she did, “let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner

Your Timing

Today, as we move into week 2 of Advent and ever deeper into winter, we have a prayer by Ted Loder from his book Guerillas of Grace:

Grant me Your Sense of Timing

O God of all seasons and senses,
grant me your sense of timing
to submit gracefully
and rejoice quietly
in the turn of the seasons.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of waiting:
of the snow joining the mystery
of the hunkered-down seeds
growing in their sleep
watched over by gnarled-limbed, grandparent trees
resting from autumn’s staggering energy;
of the silent, whirling earth
circling to race back home to the sun.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of endings:
children growing
friends leaving
jobs concluding
stages finishing
grieving over
grudges over
blaming over
excuses over.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of beginnings:
that such waitings and endings
may be a starting place,
of planting seeds
which bring to birth
what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song,
a deeper relationship,
a fuller lover—
in the fullness of your time.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.

Sharing the mystery

This beautiful illustration from the children’s book The Legend of Poinsettia by Tomie DePaola captures everything I love about gathering together this time of year. How the people— young and old alike— enter as one to share the sacred mystery. How they leave behind the proud faces and postures of everyday life to walk humbly with others who seek the face of the One who created and sustains them. How the colors that make up the palette of God invite us to delight in the world in whatever way, and whatever place, we have been called. Together, we continue our journey through Advent to the glorious night of Christmas Eve…..