The last gift has been bought. The eldest child has been charged with the task of finding his Christmas stocking, as I have no idea where it is any more. Shortly I shall rise up from this chair and start decorating the tree ( Read more... )

There is coffee brewing. There is a light snow falling. I woke early enough to make a lunch for the man who is leaving in a few minutes for his last drive to the office this year.

I remember, many years ago, my friend speaking of waking at 5:00am to pack a lunch for her husband, and I thought her mad. I would never do that. ...and then, and ( Read more... )

I write often of Joy; that deep upwelling that defies description but comes at the most unexpected moments despite all odds. That secret emotion that is not merely contentment nor happiness and yet is both of these and also so much more and so much less, that comes from the same darkened hollows that fill with grief and despair. Kahlil Gibran ( Read more... )

...there is always hope ( Read more... )

I missed the First Sunday of Advent this year. A day that disappeared in a marathon blur of hard physical work at the store ( Read more... )

Our God becomes incarnate in every human birth.
Created in God's image, we must make peace on earth.
God will fulfil Love's purpose and this shall be the sign:
We shall find Christ among us as woman, child, or man.

-- Fred Kaan, 1966; Cecil Armstrong Gibbs 1929Today a man approached me at the store with a request that we loan his son some winter ( Read more... )

Joy shall come to the wilderness, and the parched land shall then know great gladness;
As a rose, as a rose shall the deserts blossom, deserts like a garden blossom.
For living springs shall give cool water, in the desert streams shall flow;
For living springs shall give cool water, in the desert streams shall flow.

-- Israli traditionalJoy is ( Read more... )

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming from tender stem hath sprung,
Of Jesse's lineage coming, as seers of old have sung.
It came a blossom bright,
Amid the cold of winger,
When half spent was the night.

-- 15th century German, English trans. Theodore Baker 1894It is cold today, bitter cold. Bleak winter weather, but not mid-winter - we have not yet even ( Read more... )

Tomorrow Christ is coming, as yesterday He came;
A child is born this moment, we do not know his name.
The world is full of darkness, again there is no room;
The symbols of existence are stable, cross and tomb.

-- Fred Kaan, 1966; Cecil Armstrong Gibbs 1929This is the beginning; this is the ending. The celebration of Advent, when the Christian ( Read more... )

Tomorrow Christ is coming, as yesterday he came;
A child is born this moment, we do not know its name.
The world is full of darkness, again there is no room;
The symbols of forgiveness are stable, cross and tomb.

-- Fred Kaan, 1966This carol, written the year of my birth, is my favourite of the carols sung during Advent ( Read more... )