When we were children
Christmas was a time of Magic.
We did not understand
Its theology,
Or the history of its traditions,
But we could feel
What Christmas was about,
For the season spoke to us
In the language we knew best:
Dancing lights dazzled our eyes,
Merry carols sang…..
An Imagining of Mary’s sister, referenced in John 19:25
Mary and Joseph must be in Bethlehem by now. She could have the baby any day now.
It aches that they’ve left, that Mary won’t be here to have the babe. It meant so much to me to have all my family…..
This week I look at Mary’s courage in the making of that first Christmas.
An Imagining based on Luke 1:26-58; 2:1-5
When I was a little girl I remember so clearly my father talking about how much he wished the Lord would send His Messiah to us soon. Then, my mother would…..
Part of celebrating Advent is remembering that first Christmas and all the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth. In the piece below, I try to imagine what this time was like for Joseph.
An Imagining based on Matthew 1:18-25
I admit I was angry when Mary went off to visit her elderly relative…..
This past Thanksgiving week became an extra-special occasion with the November 21st birth of my third grandson. Now my week filled up with the combination of preparing for the feast and minding the two, newly made big brothers. Precious hours spent in my home, caring for these no-longer youngest…..
Having Thanksgiving as a national holiday ranks as one of the top things that make me proud to be an American. I love everything about the occasion – the gathering of family and friends, the feasting on favorite foods, and the pause before the all-too-often craziness of the Christmastide to come.
Of course, the best is the…..
God has an interesting way of speaking to us through what appear to be coincidences.
This past week in the class I teach at church we came to Acts 15 where the original “first” Church in Jerusalem met to discuss the prospect of incorporating non-Jews into the ranks of…..
I wish I knew the name of the author of the poem below. No matter how you feel about the results of the 2016 election, it seems like an appropriate meditation.
God, because you made the world and intended it to be a good place,
and called its…..
As Election Day approaches, I find I crave some antidote to the acrimony of this campaign and the unavoidable anxiety it has raised in all of us about its outcome. Thinking about this gnawing sense of apprehension has sent me back to CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. There the mentor…..
This story reminds us that when God asks us to do something hard, the Lord will supply us with the assurance we need to accomplish it (Judges 6-7).
He looked like an ordinary man, but it struck me strange that I’d never seen him before. Neither had I seen him arrive;…..