O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God. We rode the creaking van through rough non-streets of a squatters’ suburb. Once-villaged families sidle up to a city that is itself more sprawling village than metropolis. Here it is monochrome: red clay homes humping up from red clay ground, hope fashioned … Continue reading O Emmanuel

O Dayspring

O Dayspring, splendor of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. You call me from the city scape and hearth to a spacious inner landscape, horizon unobscured, where I can watch the slow crescendo of the dawn. The steadiness, the sweet return of morning’s child, hope’s advent, mysterious, winsome one wins over the … Continue reading O Dayspring

O Adonai

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire and the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai; Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. When I dare approach with closed lips and open heart, a new sense is awakened: love. Still and real, textured with presence, heavy lightness, true. My ambitious mind attempts description, … Continue reading O Adonai

Advent: Joseph

Annunciation to Joseph Steady, old boy. You can believe your eyes. Admit it. This is not unfamiliar, this mystic hope that shimmered in the shadows that day as the sawdust settled under your restless feet. You can believe what her ears heard, what she told you, how the messenger revealed the mystery’s shape hidden within her innate devotion. You can do this. The raw material … Continue reading Advent: Joseph

Lace

When I unwrap the holiday ornaments the stiff snowflakes pause a moment in my hand, fashioned, starched in precise geometry by my mother, who stitched frugal threads into transcendence. Once I presented her with a bedspread from my husband’s family not quite finished, a long-forgotten interruption. She studied the pattern, dyed the thread to match someone else’s story, not unlike her dutiful life as pastor’s … Continue reading Lace