One of the most important aspects of our Advent journey is to be ready to receive the coming of Christ.  Our Christmas Carol is “Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates”, words by Georg Weissel, 17th century; translation by Catherine Winkworth, 1855. Psalm 24)

“Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates; behold, the King of glory waits; the King of kings is drawing near; the Savior of the world is here!  Fling wide the portals of your heart…”

When I think of “mighty gates” I remember walking through the entrance to the old castle in Heidelberg, Germany which sits high atop a hill overlooking the city….

The gates were massive, and the weight of their power was felt as one steps across the threshold.  Clearly these gates were not easily opened.  The Christmas Carol is calling for open doors, open minds, open hearts.  Sometimes massive doors have been shut tight for centuries.  Christ is coming to break through doors of oppression and injustice, doors of isolation and greed.

We are called to fling wide the portals.  I wonder….must our hearts be open before we are able to open our doors?  Or does the opening of our doors lead to the opening of our hearts?  Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  This I do believe…the grace of God which enables the opening is present both ways.

Last summer we traveled through a small town in northern New Mexico.  It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.  There was nothing for miles in either direction.  A blink of an eye might cause one to miss it.  Yet our eyes were wide open because we were hungry.  It was in this place that we found what I considered to be a treasure!

It was all about the doors!  The owners of this small, beautiful dining spot had transported doors from Mexico, each hand carved and painted by an artist. 

I absolutely fell in love with these doors as each one was a work of art. What spoke volumes was the fact that each door was open, bringing a warm welcome to anyone who might stop and enter. The whole place had flung wide the portals of its heart.  This hospitality put the entire village on the map in an otherwise dry, deserted place.  I will never forget!

nk

Pondering…

How shall we go about “flinging wide the portals” on this Advent journey?

It’s 5:00 a.m.  I sit at the kitchen table, working I suppose.  Well, I hardly call this working.  My mind is pondering, wandering around from thought to thought, as I anticipate the dawn of a new day along this Advent journey.  My pen is set to the page, yet I am open to transcribe what God wants to say.  My heart is full of both fear and excitement.  It is just so much bigger than me!

The Christmas Carol for today is “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” ( words, 15th century German translation by Theodore Baker, 1894)

“Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!  Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as those of old have sung.  It came a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter, when half spent was the night.”

Here the coming of Christ as a baby is expressed in a surprising event of nature.  A rose is blooming in the dead of winter.  I love how God is so often revealed to us, speaks to us, through nature. This is is exactly what happened one night this past week in Houston, Texas.  I awakened early in anticipation of watching the sunrise.  I peeked out the window and “Lo, how a snow hath fallen!  It came a blanket of white, amid some 70 degree weather, when half spent was the night.”  It was almost eerie and somewhat supernatural…

The sunrise arrived like the cold metal of a knight in shining armor. It was a totally different sight than I had expected!  I love how the light falls right into our back patio like a footprint saying, ” My Light has come to you…arriving right at your doorstep.”

 Oh my goodness!  LOVE, the GUEST arrived in silent beauty. Surprise!  Such is the Advent journey. 

nk

Pondering…

Has there been a surprise for you yet on our journey of Advent?

Let us watch for God’s voice in nature.

Our Christmas Carol for today is entitled “People, Look East”.  The lyrics are written by Eleanor Farjeon, 1928.  It is a traditional French carol.

“People, look east.  The time is near of the crowning of the year…People, look east and sing today:  Love, the Guest, is on the way.”

I am a bit fascinated with the directional instructions in this song.  As we experience our time of Advent, watching for the coming of the Christ Child, we are told to look east.

Why east?  I have a couple of thoughts.  First, the sun rises in the east.  It is in this direction that we witness the dawning of a new day. With each new day arrives a new beginning, new life.  Both as a sign and a reality, HOPE is present in each sunrise. People look east, and expect to find hope.  In fact, within the mere turning of our faces toward the subtle glow of first light peeking across the horizon, hope begins to be born within us.  We know that new creation is ready to burst forth.  What could be more important during this Advent journey than to find the place of HOPE!  Who among us does not find our spirits lifted in the beauty of a glorious sunrise?

Looking at the words of the song once again, we are profoundly struck with the purpose of our turning around our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our souls to look east.  Why?  Because…..”LOVE, the Guest, is on the way!”   I’ll be watching!  Will you?

nk

Pondering…

Can we find occasion during Advent to intentionally watch the sunrise?

How might we embrace an attitude of hope as we anticipate the arrival of Love, the Guest?

Next Morning….

I woke up early to watch the sunrise and SURPRISE!! Snow in Houston, Texas!

LOVE

On the evening of the Christmas Cantata rehearsal I am anticipating my next line.  As one of three narrators I find it a bit amusing that I am the one dubbed to proclaim this particular proclamation. “Come…let us be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”  I smile because I know that there is at least one person sitting in this audience who knows that the word “patience” is perhaps nonexistent in my world.

This brings me to our Christmas Carol for today,” I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light”,( words Kathleen Thomerson, 1966).

“I’m looking for the coming of Christ.  I want to be with Jesus.  When we have run with patience the race, we shall know the joy of Jesus.”

The phrase that stands out for me is “run with patience the race”.  I totally do not get how “run with patience” happens.  It feels like an oxymoron to me!  So part of me would just like to toss this aside and move on.  But it won’t let me go.

My children have both run marathons.  I have never done that.  I do, however, feel that my stride in ministry has been like running a race…wholeheartedly giving it everything I’ve got.  It’s just that “patience” thing.  Hebrews 12:1 expresses it like this, “We run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.”  The original Greek word for “patience” here is synonymous with cheerful, hopeful, endurance, constance, patient continuance (waiting).  So, thinking about my children and their months of preparation for the marathon, I witness their persistence, their practice, their pace.  They are respectful of the process, knowing they are not yet where they will be.  They believe in what they do not yet fully see.  Ah, such is the belief in this journey of faith in which Jesus will perfect our faith as we wholeheartedly pour ourselves into the race.  And it all happens in God’s perfect timing, not ours.

This photo is of my daughter and her friends who all run together every morning as they prepare for the marathon.  She tells me that the spirit of the team makes all the difference.  They patiently run the race together!  

Now my words as narrator echo in my heart, ” Come…let us be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him”.  I listen then as the choir sings their song, “We are waiting Lord. We are listening Lord.  Patience, give us patience Lord. Give us faith that you hear every prayer.”  Yes!  I watch their faces as they sing.  It is together that we patiently run this race.  I love them so very much!

nk

Pondering…

How do we envision ourselves patiently running the race?

With whom are we running?

Advent is an important time to listen to the sounds.  “Sleigh bells ring!  Are you listening?”  There is music everywhere, and unexpected sounds around every corner if we pay attention.  Our Christmas Carol for today is “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” (words by Edmund H. Sears, 1849).  The sounds are the angels singing, and they are still singing today.

“Still through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled, and still their heavenly music floats o’er all the weary world; above its sad and lowly plains, they bend on hovering wing, and ever o’er its Babel sounds the blessed angels sing.”

The phrase that stands out for me is “ever o’er its Babel sounds”.  The words are reminiscent of the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel.  (Genesis 10:32-11:9).  The people built a tower all the way up to the heavens.  Their thought was that if they could reach the heavens then they would be as God.  As a result their harmony was broken and their tongues became chaos.  They began to argue and fight.  Their babbling became noise and misunderstanding.  It is expressed here in my collage…

Now we know that the heavenly music came to earth at the time of Advent and its sound can  be heard above the misunderstandings of Babel.  Arriving on peaceful wings the sounds from Heaven bring unity and clarity….a new and deeper understanding among all of God’s children.  Wow!  Maybe we should perk up and listen!

nk

Pondering…

How are the sounds of Babel present today?

Let us listen carefully for the music of the Angels in our midst, carrying us to a new place.

We are created to be in relationship with God, our Creator.  Creature, Creator, and Creation are all united in Spirit.  We are one with God and one with each other.  We are lonely without God.  Sin is defined as anything that separates us from God.  We are lonely in our individual sin as well as our communal sin.  Advent is God’s journey to come and find us.  Emmanuel means “God with us”.  Our Christmas Carol for today:

“O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear”. (9th century Latin translation)

The phrase that stands out for me is “mourns in lonely exile”.  The greatest human need is to love and be loved unconditionally and wholeheartedly, to be known fully.  Our hearts hold within them a deep longing for God.  The photo above is one I took of children in Africa when I was there on a mission trip.  Their faces seem to express for me how we are captives in exile longing for God to come to us.  Such is the Advent journey.  Come, Lord.  Come!

This past weekend I was preparing our home for Advent, trimming the tree and finding a special place for each nativity.  My favorite is this nativity from Africa.  There is just something about the Baby Jesus tucked in a banana leaf!

As I was carefully, thoughtfully putting each figure in place, I found myself singing this prayer in my heart…“Be near me, Lord Jesus,  I ask Thee to stay close by me forever, and love me, I pray”.  (Away in a Manger).  The words arose out of the deep longing in my heart.  And God spoke through the prophet Isaiah…

nk

Pondering…

What do you see in the face of each child in the photo?  With which one do you relate?

What might the blue barrier represent for you?

The Advent journey invites us to realize the state of the world at the time God decided to send His Son to be our Savior.  The first verse of the Christmas Carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” gives a vivid description:

“In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;  snow had fallen, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago.”  (words by Christina Rossetti, 1872).

Perhaps the phrase that jumps out for me is “Earth stood hard as iron”.  What does that sort of hardness look like in terms of humanity?  Has the cruelty of circumstances beaten creation down, trodden like a stampeded path?  Is life so parched that it has split into a dry gulch…empty, torn, void?  What about the hardness?  Have hearts been so broken that they are no longer able to feel?

Perhaps the journey to receiving the gift of the Savior of the world is the realization that we need a Savior.  God’s gift is for the whole world, poured out unconditionally.  The only part we play is to believe we are in need of a Savior.  A broken world, a broken heart, understands the words, the life of Jesus, “This is my body broken for YOU!”

The process of our journey is not becoming perfect.  It is becoming authentic.  Self-awareness grows by being fully present in every moment, taking risks in order to follow, letting go, being open to receive. In God’s timing the Light will come! “Usually we are only truly authentic when we know we are lost.  In the context of the mystery of salvation, it is the safest place to be.” (“Mile Markers, Daniel J. O’Leary)

And so the story goes…God came to earth as a baby born in a manger in the bleak midwinter of life!

nk

Pondering…

Read again the words to the song and look at the photo.  How might you relate this to the world today and/or your own life found in the images presented in the bleak midwinter?

How might we become more authentic on this Advent journey?

This photo brings back a wonderful memory of being with grandchildren….that moment of snuggling with them in my lap, sharing a story.  One never knows when a word or phrase will echo deeply within and find a home forever.  It’s important to tell the story! Sunday is the first day of the Advent Season, a time for telling once again the story of the birth of the Christ Child.  It is an old, old story, yet by the power of God’s Spirit present with us, the story is always new.

I invite you to come travel this journey of Advent with me.  The birth story becomes in some way our own birth story, not only individually, but also collectively with those who travel the journey together.  Let’s picture in our minds those persons with whom we want to travel.  This journey has no boundaries of time or place!  I can travel with my Grandpa who is in Heaven, with a stranger across the world, with a friend who lives in another place.  We are all united in the same Spirit and are brought close in the journey. In her book “Simple Abundance” Sarah Ban Breathnach says, “For each of us there is a desert to travel, a star to discover, and a being within ourselves to bring to life.”  I will be sharing the story, but God will be speaking to each of us and to all of us.  Each day of Advent, Monday through Friday, our focus will be on a phrase from the lyrics of a Christmas Carol.

The full moon calls to me.  What a beautiful way to begin our journey through the night toward Bethlehem!  The full moon is a gift.  Find a time to go outside Sunday evening and in the abundant stillness experience the breath of God.  Our journey together begins….

nk

 

I ran across this quote which spoke to me.  The past month in Montana has been so full of special moments.  How do I begin to capture and share them all?  In pondering I began to realize that the moments which “stopped me cold” were the ones I felt led to draw or paint.   Perhaps they called me to a deeper place of understanding which the experience of artistic expression could bring?  I just never thought of it this way before.  I love the thought!

The feet of my grandchildren…

 

The beauty of the skies proclaiming the glory of God….

Close encounter with an elk and the biggest rack of antlers I have ever witnessed. They appeared as wide as his body was long….

 

Experiencing the power of a majestic waterfall…

 

The  soft colors of the mighty rocks forming Yellowstone Canyon…

The moment I realized my granddaughter now has her arm around me, and there is something of me in her and her in me…

Just beneath the surface of the river swims a beautiful rainbow trout…

The deep abiding joy of being with those who have been dear friends for over fifty years…

All held in the treasure of a moment!  Thank you God for precious moments!

nk

 

T and I were hanging out together on the sofa just chatting…

“Grammy,” he said, “Callie knows how to count to one hundred!”  Obviously he was quite impressed with his sister’s huge accomplishment.  “Really!”, I replied.  “How about you?  How far can you count?”  Quickly he began, counting toward 20 with only a few hesitancies in the teens.  When he stopped at 19, I encouraged him forward, ” 20, 21, 22…”.  He picked it up and headed straight to 29.  With a little help again he raced through the 30’s.  We continued this journey until victoriously with a “high-five” he made it to 100!  “See”, I said, “YOU can count to 100.  All you need to learn is to count by 10’s…10, 20, 30, (etc.).  T,  you can count to 100 all by yourself!”.

Then in an instant, little T’s eyebrows raised up high, his eyes got very big.  His face got close to mine as he proclaimed, “NO GRAMMY!  I need my grandparents to help me!”  Then he wanted to get something, briefly leaving his spot on the sofa.  “Grammy, I’ll be back soon.  I want you to stay right here for 138 minutes!”

Inside I smiled deeply as those words rang out in my heart like the tolling of a big bell…”One hundred and thirty-eight minutes”.  In the course of a day, that is not really very long…less than 2 1/2 hours.  But in the mind of a four year old who just learned to count all the way to 100, this number was bigger than what he could yet reach.  It contained all the places he had yet to go!  And he wanted me, his Grammy, right beside him.

My blog is all about moments.  Each of us are gifted with minutes that can become moments which last a lifetime.  This is true for all of us, but I think especially true for children.  As the song goes, “It only takes a moment, to be loved your whole life long.”

T and his sisters are arriving today for a week together here in Montana.  I awoke before dawn this morning anticipating the moments.  Smiling now, 138 minutes is just around the corner once again!

nk