I am sharing with you my Advent Christmas ponderings and readings. It my hope to supplement your time in the Bible with writing by myself and other authors that explore this beautiful and profound season. Within you find essays and poems. May your Christmas be blessed.
Last night, I baked our favorite cranberry oatmeal cookies (if you would like the recipe, let me know. We made it on our own from an ancient Sunset magazine). On the first night of these Christmas cookies, I announced that we could have as many as we wanted. I ate three delicious fresh cookies with steaming decaf coffee and Irish cream.
My husband surprised me this morning by signing us up to bake cookies for our church’s Christmas Eve get-together. I am pleasantly happy about this, as I love baking and sharing, as it is a way to give that I hadn’t thought of. I am also going to try out a new recipe from King Arthur Baking for frosted sugar cookies. But first I must shop for a Christmas tree cookie cutter. More fun I am finding.
Then, as we looked outside, a heavy grey fog bounded heavily on our community. But even in this dense view, nothing stopped us from the beauty and joy of Christmas.
Because the Light will come—it always does. It breaks through in the most extraordinary ways, doesn’t it? For example, when a ray pops through, dismissing the rolling fog blanket; as the Christmas lights blink on from the automatic timer and the Advent candles are lit; choosing grace rather than bitterness or anger; choosing to love instead of withholding it, or offering our services to bake cookies for the church.
To help you celebrate and contemplate this Christmas, I have some beautiful Advent readings for you below:
??1.
A Light in the Darkness: An Advent Series??, a six-party essay by
Kimberly Phinney and https://www.thewayback2ourselves.com/blog in which I am an essayist. Visit now, bookmark, and start reading.
The Liturgy of Waiting: How Our Encounter with the Nativity Gives Us Eternal Peace by Deborah Rutherford
Enjoy powerful and personal essays from Rosa Gilbert, Kristine Amundrud, Donna Bucher, Heather Lobe Johnson of Pilgrimage, Deidre Braley and Deborah Rutherford, as they collectively delve into the depths of the human experience and exalt the shining LIGHT of our Savior. We can’t wait to worship in word and wonder with you, so please bookmark this blog so you can return to it in the coming days. It is our hope and prayer that this offering meets you exactly where you are and helps shine Christ’s healing light in your darkest spaces.
2.
An Advent in Poetry: The Vessels of Light Journal’s Special Advent Collection, “The Birth of Light.” My poem In the Midnight Clear (Light Finds You) is there along with other lovely poems. A perfect way to celebrate and contemplate Advent. A special thank you to Alexis Ragan for putting together this stunning collection with so many other wonderful writers.
?
?In the Midnight Clear (The Light Finds You)
1.
Messiah, Messiah,
trembled lips:
in the empty wilderness;
whispers wisped by wellsprings
as sandals pressed into the somber desert;
on a pasture hillside,
speckled with close-knit flocks
a shepherd carried an ewe
under the unbound empyrean.
2.
Oh, come, oh come ye, Immanuel.
3.
On lowly, sad plains in the midnight clear,
humble shepherds tended their flocks
under a star’s brilliance.
Through cloven skies, with harps of gold
reached Angels bringing Good Tidings of Joy,
“A Savior is Born.”
Love wrapped the weary world
one silent night,
wide as the liminal space,
the in-between, a threshold to Cross
because God so loved the world,
Messiah, Messiah.
4.
There was no room in the inn,
only a stable’s dark with a manger.
A mother’s face glistened
in a babe King’s glow
among the gentle ox and lamb.
A King’s palace
where hay hung as royal curtains,
with jewels in the sky,
and robes of swaddling cloth,
regal all the same.
The shepherds hastened to Bethlehem
and found their King
swathed in swaddling cloth:
God of Love,
Incarnate,
Miracle of Salvation:
Messiah, Messiah.
5.
Mary pondered all that had happened:
the wonder from her womb
birthed like you and me,
God in human flesh stretching
His little toes and fingers,
our Maker’s first cry.
Holding her baby,
the Christ, Messiah for all,
she kissed the face of God,
her sleeping child,
The Great I am.
6.
For God so loved the world:
Immanuel,
the greatest gift of all
in the darkest moment of all.
When you are searching in the dark
the Light finds you.
3.
And my essay, Bending With Angels, Resting in the Wait of Christmas
is published in Alethia Today Magazine Yuletide issue. Don’t miss this one with my Christmas prayer.
- Lastly sharing one of my favorites from the blog, God’s Wonderland. We rarely have snow in Middle Georgia but this is the time we did and it was wonderful (from a Southern California raised lady who always dreamed of a white Christmas)!
I hope these writings bless you and that you find the splendor and the Light in this beautiful Christmas wonder as you light candles, turn on lights, and bake cookies with grace and love.
May our hearts be full with Jesus.
Much love & blessings,
Deborah
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