Wasn’t going to post today. Writer’s block. Or simply too lazy and uninspired. Yet, Spring doesn’t allow you to be uninspired. There’s just too much life starting anew not to embrace it!
And so, a little blessing I found. I think it’s Gaelic and I cannot credit it adequately, but I hope it makes you smile. Until we meet again:
May there always be work for your hands to do. May your purse always hold a coin or two. May the sun always shine upon your window pane. May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain. May the hand of a friend always be near to you and May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.
(traditional blessing)
Faithandworship.com
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Welcome back, my beloveds, to the last week of Advent and the countdown to Christmas! We are so unprepared! Nevertheless, time will go on and Christmas will come and go – whether I am prepared or not. Hopefully, this little post will help us all get in the mood. Thought I’d share about the final theme of Advent for this week: Joy. Our youngest experienced the joy of her first snow day today. A new experience for us… buses cancelled and therefore no one shows up to school? What’s with that?! I’m not complaining though… it means I don’t have to drive in it. Bonus.
(and so has the snow !!)
This is not the first time I’ve mused about Joy. It’s a recurring theme on mittonmusings.com. If you are interested, go back and check these posts out. They’ll make you smile:
Unspeakable joy. It’s one of the lyrics in the adapted Joy to the World hymn that’s circulating around this time of year. I wonder, though, what does it mean? Unspeakable joy. Usually when you experience “joy” you wanna chat about it, no? Shout: ”Snow day! No school! Hurray!” Tell the world about your experience? Spread the news? Does unspeakable mean indescribable? So dumbfounded that you can’t speak about it? Or awe? Like the marvel at something that just takes your words away. I’m thinking it must be like that.
I’m also guessing it takes a little bit of discipline to see those things around you that bring that unspeakable joy. I’m imagining a new mom… hectic chaos in the midst of bottles, burps and bathing. It’s not until that early morning feeding when the quiet allows you to take a moment, when no one else is around, to marvel at your baby’s tiny features. So perfectly designed. The softness of their delicate skin, and the sweet smell of sour milk and baby powder. If you know, you know. I wonder if Mary had that moment with baby Jesus. I’m sure she did. In fact, I am sure she had it a few times.
I’m learning to discover it more and more as I take the time to slow down and practice seeing those little things in the world around me. Tiny footprints in the snow. The flame of a warm fire as it dances. It’s dangerous. Fire consumes. Yet, if you take the time to quietly observe things, you will see the beauty in it. That’s when that marvel comes in to play. That’s when you begin to get that awestruck “joy” that there is Someone so much bigger than you who has mastered the tiny intricacies of life as we know it. And that Someone has set them in to place so that this big wide world goes ’round with the exact precision it needs to be set at. Amazing.
We had a unique experience this past week when we were decorating our front porch. We discovered a dead pigeon on the lawn. Now before you scroll away, hear me out. We don’t know what happened. There was one tiny blood streak. A hawk maybe. Or a cat? We don’t get a lot of pigeons, so I think it was dropped in from elsewhere. And I don’t want to glorify death, but there was something beautiful about this bird. Each feather layered in a silky, smooth collection. Some feathers glistening in green and purple iridescence. A striking contrast to the grey and white body feathers. Each wing stretched out to reveal strong flight feathers. Yet so light as to carry this creature on the wind. It hit me with that awe and wonder for a moment. I was able to somehow experience the joy in death. It allowed me to observe a creature I would otherwise not have been able to examine so closely had it been alive. Do you get it? I hope you see it through my words.
Beauty in the everyday. Photo via Popular Science
And it’s the wish I have for you, my friend, as you go into this holiday season. I wish you the chance to experience “unspeakable joy” this Christmas. To practice seeing the beauty – even in some not so beautiful experiences. Perhaps, like many, the holiday season is not an easy one for you. It is not the “happy” season everyone talks about. Joy is different. It goes beyond the happy to a deeper, somehow indescribable and unspeakable emotion of awe in the essence of Christmas. The emotion behind the truth that the Creator of the entire world came to the earth as a tiny, helpless babe. Do you feel it? I wish it for you, my beloved. Joy, unspeakable Joy, to the world!!
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Sitting alone in the dark solitude of our empty living room,
sipping my morning coffee and looking out our front picture window
into the distant panorama of a residential street that had yet to awaken,
I listened to the empty silence of a cold winter's morning.
The frozen landscape crackled with the winter's bitter wind...
a fridgid contrast to my warm blanket and hot drink.
I couldn't help looking at everything and saying as God did, "It is good."
Only my voice had a touch of wonder in it,
while His had only satisfaction.
So many days are spent chasing obligations and deadlines and paycheques
and nothing special seems to stand out worth remembering.
But lockdowns and quarantines and five such minutes in my living room alone
simply me and God, just being still and truly seeing, truly appreciating,
are worth a lifetime of chasing.
It was written by me, but inspired by a devotional I recently read by Susan Lenzkes. It was a real experience but captured again as I read her words and tried to apply them to myself. As most of you know, my #wordoftheyear for 2022 is “magic”, so I have begun to actively seek out the moments of wonder and awe. To appreciate the little things. Facebook memories of my kids a hundred years ago. So cute all decked out for a Sunday morning service. Knowing we are safe and financially secure for the start of another year. Hating lockdowns and school online, but thankful that technology allows us education and the ability to connect with others. Full bellies. Warm houses and clean water.
So much we take for granted. So many wishes for this or that. I am reminded that life is really, really fragile. Tiny humans are born completely dependent. Many return to that state of complete dependence as we age. Time is not our friend. This fallen world and all the “bad” that is in it makes me wonder: “Why on earth?”
For some reason, Psalm 8 has been popping up in my world all this week. If you have time, look it up. David wondered “Why on earth?” too. I love learning about the idiosyncracies of this fabulous planet we live on. And all the creatures that share it with us. How inventive is our God who created every living thing? Yes, even one small virus who has the ability to mutate and change and manipulate an entire population of beings. He is in control, my friends! But it makes me wonder, like the psalmist, if God is in control of the big things like the universe and all the small things like corona viruses, then “what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Somehow, He thinks we are worth it.
He looked at us, feeble humans, a little lower than the heavenly beings, and decided these made-from-dust creatures were worth loving and dying for. That you were worth dying for. That I was worth loving. Oh, the weight of those things! Wonder – full.
My wish for you and I this week is that we continue to be blessed in that realization. That we continue to seek for and see the wonder that is before us, behind us, and all around us. Will you join me as I look for it? Until next week, my friends!
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