Friends, bloggies, countrywomen, I am curled up on the green sofa here feeling deeply deeply grateful for the grace of our year that turns and turns again time after time, bringing us back to the same gentle points of pause. The places where, no matter what that year has brought or wrought or wrangled, you can start again. Happy First Sunday in Advent.
I love November. I say this every year! I love November. It has no agenda for us in our house - no birthdays, no big events, no demands. It has become my time to marvel at the big, bare, bleak skies and just breathe. However - this year I have noticed with awe the colour of it all.
We have had spectacular sunrises and sunsets in this northern part of our northern Ireland. Mind you, maybe we always did and I didn't notice because I wasn't spending as much time down on the shore and beyond. So, here is my rather fanciful idea for the start of my Advent...
I wonder if the vibrant, glowing, sky-illuminating colours of this November's skies could paint all the emotions of the last year - all the joys and all the pain and all the hope and all the persecution. It could all be written on the clouds, laid out, inspected, recognised, declared. And even if some of the beauty was a terrible beauty, too much of a beauty to take in, it was still beautiful.
And haven't the skies been recognised as declarations for so many generations of thinkers? A young man who achieved great things after years tormented and chased and abused could still say, " The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Psalm 19)
The week after Jolly was here I spent a lot of time wondering why I had used the word "command" when I was describing our dusk walk down at the shore. At the time I hesitated over it and couldn't explain to myself why it was nonetheless the only word that I knew I needed to choose. I decided eventually that the closest I could get came from a passage that our assistant minister had talked about earlier in the Autumn. "But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. "
I think that the command for me recently has come from my November skies and I'm taking it as my Advent word this year. I'm going to try to let all those colours of the year settle as I make some attempt to take stock. I'm going to heed the instruction to take "a long thoughtful look" at what is over my head, and in it. I'll declare all those emotions as the skies declare their Creator God, and we'll finish another year together, He and I.
Happy First Sunday in Advent x
(Apologies for my generally depressed and depressing thoughts! It's been a tough old time here, and I do know that I really need to get over it all! And you know that the Bible bits are from Psalm 19 and the Message version of the first chapter of the letter that Paul wrote to early Christians in Rome. And I'm also still sorry for the rubbish pictures from my phone which is still all cracked and still held together with sticky tape!!)
No apologies needed, Mags, and your photos are lovely! It is so calming to look at the skies, no matter the time of day or night. They are shouting, and we often are not listening. And we enter into Advent.
What do you mean by "get over it all," Mags? I'm truly interested, because while I know we need to "in everything give thanks," there is precedent in the prayer book of the church - the Psalter - for lament, for asking God, "How long?" The Psalmist often doesn't find hope again until the end of the Psalm.
I seem to need an increasing amount of Psalm reading these days, to give me words for my wonderings and laments and confessions of faith.
God bless you, Dear! You are always an inspiration, in your returning to prayer and to Christ as your Life.
Well, happy Advent to you too. I can't say that I love November -too long till the turn of the year and the coming back of the light - but in fact we've had some beautiful days here and the colours have been amazing this year. Every season has its virtues.
Beautiful photos and I've always loved the carol on your post. Perhaps I've seen it before on your blog? That woman has such a strong voice, is perfect against the drone (not meant negative) of the male voices. "Get over it" is not something I like to hear; there are seasons within seasons and some of them are simply bone hard. You are held in prayer with loving kindness and, as Elizabeth Elliott said, "just do the next thing". Perhaps you've overwhelmed yourself, being all things to everyone and forgetting to tend to yourself as well. You are loved.
4 comments:
No apologies needed, Mags, and your photos are lovely! It is so calming to look at the skies, no matter the time of day or night. They are shouting, and we often are not listening. And we enter into Advent.
What do you mean by "get over it all," Mags? I'm truly interested, because while I know we need to "in everything give thanks," there is precedent in the prayer book of the church - the Psalter - for lament, for asking God, "How long?" The Psalmist often doesn't find hope again until the end of the Psalm.
I seem to need an increasing amount of Psalm reading these days, to give me words for my wonderings and laments and confessions of faith.
God bless you, Dear! You are always an inspiration, in your returning to prayer and to Christ as your Life.
Well, happy Advent to you too. I can't say that I love November -too long till the turn of the year and the coming back of the light - but in fact we've had some beautiful days here and the colours have been amazing this year. Every season has its virtues.
Beautiful photos and I've always loved the carol on your post. Perhaps I've seen it before on your blog? That woman has such a strong voice, is perfect against the drone (not meant negative) of the male voices.
"Get over it" is not something I like to hear; there are seasons within seasons and some of them are simply bone hard. You are held in prayer with loving kindness and, as Elizabeth Elliott said, "just do the next thing". Perhaps you've overwhelmed yourself, being all things to everyone and forgetting to tend to yourself as well.
You are loved.
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