Monday, December 14, 2009

Seasons

What season are you experiencing?
Are you able to accept that this "is" now?
                                                     ~kel


That kel, always making me think.


It's been a long, dark, cold winter.  Everything has been asleep while cold has been howling and killing.
But I've survived, asleep somewhere, and now maybe there's a break in the clouds. I feel like my old self sometimes, a little wiser and more careful, seeking the sun. But then, life strikes again--this week I will attend the burial of my 16 yr old nephew, killed accidentally, senselessly, tragically.
I had a hold on life, confident of my place, my space, my calling--it feels like I got hit by a truck while I was singing to my favorite song, hit first with the suicide of my friend and and then...well, everything else.  What my sister must be going through is unimaginable.


It's not my thing to reach out, ask for help.  Obviously, I disappear if I don't have an encouraging word, a wise observation to share.  I'm not one of those weak, needy people that need a lot of hand-holding.
Oh, who am I kidding--I really need everybody to hold my hand right now. It won't make the winter go away, but I will feel a little warmer.

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Thursday, December 3, 2009

A kitten a day keeps me happy...

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Advent (from the Latin word adventus, meaning "coming") is a season of the Western Christian churches, the period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus.


Tradition instructs us to practice Advent during the four weeks before Christmas Day, but my reality is that I have been waiting for six months for the Star to light up my sky and lead me to the Answer.   I wonder if those Wise Guys ever got tired while they were trudging across the land and had a doubt or two (or five) that the Promise really existed and why was it so far away.  But of course, that is what kept them going--the Promise. The Promise of freedom from slavery, of deliverance from darkness, the King of Kings who had a star created in His honor.  But still, after a full day of stubborn camels, sprained ankles, cranky servants, and spoiled food, I imagine at least one wise one taking a walk away from the camp just to get away for a minute and gather his thoughts.  He probably got just far enough away that he couldn't hear the hubbub of the others, far enough away that he could hear his own breath and footsteps on the path.  Maybe he sat down on a rock, or on the cold ground, or maybe he just lost the will to take one more step of faith and dropped to his hands and knees, telling God "Enough!"  And in that one word, he confessed his humanity, his limits, his need, his failure to live up to the expectations of the the title "Wise Man" and felt the world crash down around his head.  Surely he cried, because in his tears was the sparkle of starsong, singing him to the little hut right down the road. He ran there and found the Promise, new and fresh with that little baby smell, and held Jesus as close as he could, renewed, redeemed, reborn.


Isaiah 9:2
2 The people walking in darkness  




have seen a great light;


on those living in the land of the shadow of death [a]


a light has dawned.

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