The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
-Philip Brooks, 1867, Hymn: O Little Town of Bethlehem
Monthly Archives: December 2013
born to give them second birth…
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die;
born to raise the sons of earth;
born to give them second birth.
-Charles Wesley, Hymn: Joyful, all ye nations, rise
The Coming
And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many People
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.
-R.S. Thomas
season on hope
“Hope begins in the dark,
the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing,
the dawn will come.
You wait and watch and work:
You don’tgive up.”
-Anne Lamott
Christ be our light
Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
light for the world to see.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.
–Bernadette Farrell, Hymn: Christ, Be Our Light
the door of freedom has been opened
A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes…
and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside,
is not a bad picture of Advent.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
peacocks for pilgrims 