In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago. —Christina Rosetti, “In the Bleak Midwinter” How silently, how silently The wondrous gift is given So God imparts to human hearts The…
Do you have a favorite Christmas carol? Or several? Do you have fond memories of singing with others? I would answer yes to all of the above! I love singing Christmas carols and have memories of the olden days when we used to go door to door in a group singing, usually on Christmas Eve-Eve,…
The idea of ghosts may give us goosebumps. “Ghosts” are spirits. The etymological derivation is interesting: Ghost < Old English gast, breath, and < proto West Germanic, gaistaz; source also of Old Saxon gest, Old Frisian jest, Middle Dutch gheest, Dutch geest, German Geist “spirit, ghost.” This is conjectured to be from a PIE root gheis-, used in forming words involving the notions…
This beautiful time of the year, we celebrate and ritualize lots of wonderful endings and new beginnings. Some hearts are comforted by the scripture story of the Nativity scene, the birth of a new baby to a man and woman accompanied by resting sheep, donkey and “lowly cattle” enveloped on a beautiful starry night. Jesus…
Each December as one year comes to a close and another is just a glimmer of possibility, I try to encapsulate the outgoing year—and how I experienced it—in a single word. The year I regained my health by losing weight, went skydiving and took a pilgrimage to Italy with my mother, my word was Joy.…
John O’Donohue encouraged us to not only pray, but to create or fashion a prayer that expresses the longing and beauty of our hearts. I wanted to share this powerful guidance as an invitation to create your own prayer with intention. Even if you do not go so far as to memorize the prayer, the…
The winter solstice is coming up on Monday, Dec. 21. This is the shortest day and the longest night of the year and the first official day of winter. As I ponder this special time of year both seasonally and spiritually, I am holding a beautiful song in my heart called The Longest Night of…
“And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” —Luke 2:12, New American Bible The signs of the times are all around us. They offer a message that’s open to interpretation and they also call us to respond in some way. Sometimes it…
I have a lot of milkweed in my wildflower garden and around my yard. Milkweed seems to exhibit a kind of faith growing where they go, persevering, relinquishing what is not needed, and bringing joy like caterpillars and butterflies! My plants had their start with one of the FSPA sisters, and I would like to…
“People are hard to hate close up. Move in.” —Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness Abandoning hatred allows, or rather, demands a look closer at the lives and experiences of people who have beliefs much different than our own. Can I really be a good person because I’m compassionate and then decide that someone else is…