Category: advent
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advent: joy
This week, lighting the pink candle, representing Joy. Multiple google searches reveal:> Joy is an inner feeling, while happiness is an outward expression. Joy endures hardship and trials, believing in their meaning or purpose. You may pursue happiness, but you choose Joy. > Multiple poems about Joy, none of which struck my fancy. > At…
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advent: peace
The second purple candle of advent represents peace. Here I get to share just about my favorite Christmas words from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day…
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more hope
My readings today threw me a Heavenly life preserver, just when I need it most. Maybe you also need this life buoy. Life’s pressures can become overwhelming, feeling like you’re drowning. However, struggles with darkness are necessary; failure and mistakes teach us more than our successes. Our life issues help us understand the difficulties others…
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advent: carols
Christmas Day 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 57 year old widowed father of six children, the oldest nearly paralyzed during the civil war, wrote a poem capturing the dissonance in his own heart and in the world around him. This timeless carol is one of my favorites. May you also find hope and peace this day.…
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advent: stille nacht
Oberndorf, 1888, the church organ broken, Franz Gruber, with his guitar began a tradition, “Silent Night.” May all of you join me in taking time to light a candle and sing at church, with family, yourself at home, with a choir, an orchestra, a guitar, or with a download. Silent night, holy night!Son of God…
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advent: precursor
“He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents…” (Malachi 4:6) These words, the last in the Old Testament, echo the hope and heart cry of so many, even more poignantly in this season of waiting. The verses also provide a segue to the New Testament…
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advent: the big picture
It’s easy, dare I say human to get caught up in the dailyness of living. You know – finances, family issues, food, house cleaning, car maintenance, work obligations, pets, health, time for meditation – just getting through the day and foreseeable future. Then we see Scripture challenging us to live beyond tunnel vision. We are…
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advent: utopia
We are told in the Scriptures that “the Kingdom of Heaven is among us.” As I look around, I’m not seeing the Eden of Paradise. I see religions promoting reward systems with the promise of a future utopia. It appears easier for mankind to obey religious laws and rituals than to accept the transformation offered…
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advent: the cosmos
Today I read a concept new to me, one which I will ponder – the Cosmic Christ. [I do not subscribe to our cancel culture in which disagreement causes one to lose their social or professional connections. No ability to thoughtfully consider an opinion different from one’s own, and intelligently discuss will lead to destruction…
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advent: before and after
This is for those who are feeling ill, broken hearted, outcast, lonely. Jesus comes along with compassion, identifying with those in pain; healing physically, but more importantly, healing injured and downcast souls. Medical cure is not His foremost commission. Many restorative examples are found in the New Testament. Leprosy in those days was a…
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