Category Archives: December

Frozen Art

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in December, poem, winter

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My mother introduced me to Jack Frost
one early evening in a long ago December
as we huddled together in the dark
next to a front room window,
the cold from outside finding its way inside,
chilling our almost cheek-to-cheek faces.
Those were the days way before our
obsession with R-factors and insulation.
(I mean, we had lead and asbestos everywhere.)

Smiling, she pointed to Jack’s artful depiction of
a bouquet of frozen ferns etched with such
delicate grace on the thin pane of glass.
The frost was silvery white until the headlamps
from passing cars momentarily drenched the
designs with rainbow rich purples and
magentas and sparkling yellows.

Frost_patterns_2

Inside my impressionable four-year-old head
the magic made perfect sense, enchanting
a tender imagination before reason and
education would cruelly dispel sprites and
faeries and innocence and assumptions that
anything might be possible.

And so we gazed through that brittle canvass,
silently waiting for Pops to come home from work.
The corner streetlight seemed so alone out there,
a mysterious glowing globe of amber straining
with every possible watt to penetrate the long
hours of yet another bitter winter’s night.

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A Christmas Carol

18 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by in Charles Wesley, Christmas, Christmas Carol, December, Jesus Christ

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Today we say “Happy Birthday” to Charles Wesley, born in Epworth, England, 1707. Often eclipsed historically by his better known brother – Methodist co-founder and fiery preacher, John – Charles has nonetheless left a significant mark on the Protestant persuasion, composing literally thousands of church hymns during his lifetime of 81 years.

Preaching in the open air to tens of thousands, John did most of the preaching, while Charles led the faithful in hymns at revival meetings. They were not always welcomed, however, sometimes met by raucous mobs who threw stones, dirt and eggs in their faces. Charles WesleyTraveling by horseback from one town to the next, if Charles thought of a hymn, he would detour to the house of the nearest acquaintance, demand a pen and ink and write it down.

Personally I have heard only a few of those inspiring melodies, but during the Christmas season I have frequent opportunities to hear my favorite, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Usually sung robustly by a festive choir surrounded by sparkling candle lights and streams of ornamental holly, it’s an almost must-do song for traditional Christmas Eve services. A thundering pipe organ accompaniment always adds an element of soul-stirring intensity to the performance.

My favorite lyric in the entire piece is simply “God and sinners reconciled,” a short but dynamic phrase that to me expresses the whole idea of why we actually celebrate a day called Christmas. It’s John 3:16 and all the rest of the Bible presented in a way that anyone, anywhere, of any age can understand. No doctorate in theology needed. Adam broke the relationship with God through disobedience. Jesus, the last Adam and the Second Man, made it possible to get back to the original plan: eternal life with the Creator, on a personal relationship level.

Reconcile is a word often used as a legal and accounting term. It can mean to win over to friendliness; to cause to become amicable; to settle a quarrel or dispute; to bring into agreement or harmony, make compatible; to restore. These definitions also make perfect sense describing what salvation is basically all about. So when I hear this blessed carol during the next few days, my heart will pound a little bit stronger knowing that the animosity between God and myself is gone because of a baby born in Bethlehem. “Mild he lays his glory by, Born that we no more shall die, Born to raise us from the earth, Born to give us second birth.”

Bravo, Charles Wesley! The herald angels are still singing.

The Winter Solstice

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Celtic Christmas, December, Solstice, Stonehenge, winter

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Today in our northern hemisphere we observe the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. On the calendar it’s the first day of winter and one of the oldest known holidays in human history. Historians claim that solstice celebrations go back for millennia, back to a time of our most primitive fears and dark superstitions, when the sun or its absence played a major role in forming the basis of many early cultures and religions. Everyone knows, for example, that the monoliths of Stonehenge were supposedly erected to monitor the cycle of the seasons, especially to frame the first rays of an austere winter’s sun.

I won’t actually see the sun this afternoon, dipping as low as it can go, hugging the frozen bare-boned horizon. The sky is a blanket of stratus cloud gloom. Looks like gray granite, and feels just as heavy. Nonetheless, I’m enjoying a collection of Celtic Christmas tunes. The 2-cd case describes the music as a “medley of relaxing and festive melodies.” And it is truly so, featuring harp, violin, guitar, cello and an occasional Irish flute, punctuated by whistles and of course, the bagpipe. The sound is so mellow I could easily sit here next to the fire with a mug full of blended orange cinnamon tea all afternoon. I’ve had enough of Bing’s White Christmas and José’s Feliz Navidad blaring out of the car radio since the day after Thanksgiving. Right now I need simple. I need consolation and assurance that as the sun enters Sagittarius it will begin to climb again, upward towards the promise of yet another spring.

Listening to an instrumenwintersolsticetal version of the centuries old God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, I know that if it were sung, I would hear the encouraging lyric “Let nothing you dismay.” I will take that advice to heart today, laying aside my cares and trials that in the big picture really don’t at all affect the mechanics or outcome of the universe. Whether I am here or not, Old Sol, according to astrophysicists in the know, will continue to fuse hydrogen atoms into an unimaginable amount of energy every second, burning bright for another five billion years. I, however, am not very certain about what will even happen to me tomorrow.

Frozen Art

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in December, poem, winter

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Wrote these lines a few months ago, in the heat of summer. Don’t know why I thought about it then.

My mother introduced me to Jack Frost
one early evening in a long ago December
as we huddled together in the dark
next to a living room window,
the cold from outside finding its way inside
chilling our almost cheek-to-cheek faces.
Those were the days way before
our phobia with R-factors and insulation.
(I mean, we had lead and asbestos everywhere.)

Smiling, she pointed to Jack’s artful bouquet of frozen ferns
etched with such delicate grace on a thin pane of glass.
The frost was silvery white until the headlamps from passing cars
momentarily tinted the designs with rainbow rich
purples and magentas and yellows.

Inside my four-year-old head,
the magic made perfect sense,
feeding a tender imagination before reason and education
would dispel sprites and faeries and innocence and
all thoughts that anything might be possible.

And so we gazed through that brittle canvass,
silently waiting for Pops to come home from work.
The corner streetlight seemed so alone out there,
a mysterious glowing globe of amber
straining with every possible watt to penetrate
the long hours of yet another bitter winter’s night.