Christmas Poem from Madeleine L'Engle

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war and hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out and the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome
Honor and truth were trampled by scorn—
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn –
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

There is a star over you, and over all whom you know.

Christmastide of Joy
by Samuel H. Miller

"The stars are easily forgotten in the cities. Unseen, obliterated by blazing lights and high buildings, they swing their splendored arch silently across the heavens. Yet they belong to the human scene. They lend to it a sense of cosmic perspective. Though we dwell on a tiny earth, we are companions of the stars, caught in the same vast web of creation. This is indeed no picayune destiny, except we make it so.

And now the Christmastide of joy rises to its full, and the story is told again of how the humblest of mortals, the Son of man, was born with a star standing over the manger where he lay. Read the story as you may, make of it what you will, but do not miss the daring implication that the farthest reaches of the universe wait upon the humblest occurrences of this world. There is a star over you, and over all whom you know. There are eternal implications in the scenes of earth; do not miss them -- they are for the guidance of the wise. This life is a web of beauty and strength, holding the stars and little children together in a mighty purpose, larger than our understanding."

from What Child is This: Reading and Prayers for Advent/Christmas by Samuel H. Miller

Little Abysses

I am reading a novel by one of my favorite authors, Nicole Krauss. It's called Great House, and it is sweeping and melancholy. Or maybe it is not so much melancholy as nostalgic, bittersweet. Nostalgia is from the Greek roots nostos, meaning homecoming, and algos, meaning pain, or grief, the pairing of which makes me think of the kind of pain that is born of deep loving in the face of loss. We all lose our original sense of home at some point, and remember it with a deep and grieving love. That's what makes nostalgia a beautiful kind of sadness, because it's sense of loss is so intrinsically linked with our sense of rootedness and belonging. We can't really have one with out the other.

Anyhow, I wanted to share this passage, which lept out at me, and which maybe has something to do with nostalgia. These lines are spoken by an elderly man who has just lost his wife. They are sad, and perhaps even melancholy, but I find them beautiful too.

"There is a fallacy that the powerful emotion of youth mellows with time. Not true. One learns to control and suppress it. But it doesn't lessen. It simply hides and concentrates itself in more discreet places. When one accidentally stubles into one of these abysses, the pain is spectacular. I find these little abysses everywhere now." (Great House, page 55)

Darkness deserves gratitude

These days the sky begins to darken before 4pm in the Boston area. The sun is slow to rise in the morning as well. Every year people complain about how depressing it is, and I am usually one of those people.

But this year I am thinking about the rich and velvety beauty of darkness, and about the many things that can only grow in the dark. Benedictine nun Joan Chittister has said "Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in sunlight."

This reminder brings to mind a particular touchstone image of mine, the line from UU hymn and anthem Spirit of Life -- "roots hold me close, wings set me free." I think of the deep networks of roots that can only grow underground in the deep dark soil. I think of the sense of new life that we now await in the season of Advent, and how that new life grows in the safe, echoing, dark of the womb.

Last Advent I preached that we need not wait to bring new light into the world through acts of compassion. Today I'm thinking, yes, we need the acts of compassion, but maybe there is something to be said for working in the dark -- waiting, growing roots.

In the end only dark makes light possible, and the opposite is true as well. But this year, I'm going to sit in the quiet dark for a while before I light up the tree. Then maybe my heart will have grown large enough to fully receive its glow.