#adventapertures2025: Blue Christmas

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the soundContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: Blue Christmas”

#adventapertures2025: day 21

Silence has its own notation: dark Jottings of duration, but not pitch,  A long black box, or little feathered hitch  Like a new Greek letter or diacritical mark  Silence is a function of Time, the lark  In flight but not in song. A nothing which  Keeps secrets or confesses. Pregnant, rich,  Or awkward, cold, theContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 21”

#adventapertures2025: day 16

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the pointContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 16”

#adventapertures2025: day 14

…darkness reaches out to offer whatever helping hand it can, calling us to trust it, saying, “Sometimes only the darkness will do.”  We owe it to the darkness to reach out and grab that hand, to respect what it has to offer, to join it to the hand of light. Catherine Bird, The Divine HeartContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 14”

#adventapertures2025: day 13

Last thing each night, go out for the moon. Pull on old coat, shut garden gate. Roll up old sleeves. Swing arms. Poor soul. Think moonset. Moonrise. All running to schedule. World black and white, Walk up the lane. Last thing each night. Look up for the moon. No sign but rain. Almost back home.Continue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 13”

#adventapertures2025: day 9

I have begun, when I’m weary and can’t decide an answer to a bewildering question to ask my dead friends for their opinion and the answer is often immediate and clear. Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child in my middle age? They stand in unisonContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 9”

#adventapertures2025: Sunday 2

It is not by chance that both words consideration and desire (from Latin desiderium)-make reference to the stars (sidera in Latin). Stars played a role in medieval cosmology that might surprise us: seeds were thought to grow into different plants as their response to different stars – a special star for oak trees and aContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: Sunday 2”

#adventapertures2025: day 7

“Advent is a story of Old Testament prophecies. It is a story of cosmic fulfillment. The dream of a world repaired in the holy darkness of Advent. A whisper is heard, words are formed.” Rev Lisha Epperson Packing to go on holiday always induces fear in me as well as excitement.  It is the fearContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 7”

#adventapertures2025: day 6

Seeing is not the work of the eyes alone… Deprived of the privilege of the eyes [the blind person] measures at the same time his loss and his gain. Most of all, he continues to live and to experience with an irresistible force the wonderful mutual exchange that takes place between the inner and theContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 6”

#adventapertures2025: day 5

I carry with me the awareness that many people find that this season brings not tidings of comfort and joy but of frustration and grief…. I believe… that in this season [we are invited] to carry the light, yes, but also to see in the dark and to find the shape of things in theContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 5”