Photo: Sledding

 

Prayer: Francis Xavier, S.J. to Ignatius of Loyola, S.J.

If the Lord our God has separated us by these vast distances, we are still united by our awareness of these strong bonds that unite us in a single spirit and a common love, since, if I have judged aright, neither physical separation, nor estrangement, nor forgetfulness can have any meaning for those who love one another in the Lord. For it seems to me that we shall always sustain each other as we were ever wont to do before.

Photo: Christ, Our Lord

 

Prayer: The Iona Community

O God, you keep us waiting for the right time in which to discover who we are, where we must go, who will be with us, and what we must do. And in all this, you keep us. Through hard questions with no easy answers; through failing where we hoped to succeed and making an impact when we felt we were useless; through the patience and the dreams and the love of others, you keep us. Thank you for the keeping time, now and forever. Amen.

Poem: “The Baptism” by John Milton

Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice

More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried

Repentance, and heaven’s kingdom nigh at hand

To all baptized: to his great baptism flocked

From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed

To the flood Jordan, came, as then obscure,

Unmarked, unknown; but him the Baptist soon

Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore

As to his worthier, and would have resigned

To him his heavenly office, nor was long

His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized

Heaven opened, and in likeness of a dove

The Spirit descended, while the Father’s voice

From heaven pronounced him his beloved Son. 

Photo: A Koi moment

 

Poem: “Work of Christmas Begins” by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled, 

 when the star in the sky is gone, 

 when kings and princes are home, 

 when the shepherds are back with the flocks, 

 then the work of Christmas begins: 

     to find the lost, to heal those broken in spirit, to feed the hungry, to release the oppressed, 

     to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among all peoples, to make a little music with the heart …  

And to radiate the Light of Christ, every day, in every way, in all that we do, and in all that we say. 

Then the work of Christmas begins.

Photo: The Joy of Epiphany

 

Poem: “Twelfth Night” by Phyllis McGinley

 Down from the window take the withered holly,

Feed the torn tissue to the literal blaze.

Now, now at last come the melancholy

Anticlimactic days.

 

Here in the light of morning, hard, unvarnished,

Let us with haste dismantle the tired tree

Of ornaments, a trifle chipped and tarnished,

Pretend we do not see.

 

How all the rooms seem shabbier and meaner

And the tired house a little less than snug.

Fold up the tinsel. Run the vacuum cleaner

Over the littered rug.

 

Nothing is left. The postman passes by, now,

Bearing no gifts, no kind or seasonal word.

The icebox yields no wing, no nibbled thigh, now, 

From any holiday bird.

 

Sharp in the streets the north wind plagues its betters

While Christmas snow to gutters is consigned.

Nothing remains except the thank-you letters,

Most tedious to the mind,

 

And the gift gadget (duplicated) which is 

Marked for exchange at Abercrombie-Fitch’s.

Spirituality: "It is not over," by Ann Weems

It is not over, this birthing. 

There are always newer skies into which God can throw stars. 

When we begin to think that we can predict the Advent of God, 

 that we can box the Christ in a stable in Bethlehem, 

 that’s just the time that God will be born in a place we can’t imagine and won’t believe. 

Those who wait for God watch with their hearts and not their eyes, 

listening, always listening, 

for angel words.