Steep me in your stillness
Category: Poetry
As soon as I knocked
Wrote this five years after the previous poem. Slow learner.
A tiny bit of waiting-in-hope grace
Blessing the Door
Stumbled upon this beautiful Advent poem:
Blessing the Door
First let us say
Copyright Jan Richardson
a blessing
upon all who have
entered here before
us.
You can see the sign
of their passage
by the worn place
on the doorframe
as they walked through,
the smooth sill
of the threshold
where they crossed.
Press your ear
to the door
for a moment before
you enter
and you will hear
their voices murmuring
words you cannot
quite make out
but know
are full of welcome.
On the other side
these ones who wait –
for you,
if you do not
know by now –
understand what
a blessing can do
how it appears like
nothing you expected
how it arrives as
visitor,
outrageous invitation,
child;
how it takes the form
of angel
or dream;
how it comes
in words like
How can this be?
and
lifted up the lowly:
how it sounds like
in the wilderness
prepare the way.
Those who wait
for you know
how the mark of
a true blessing
is that it will take you
where you did not
think to go.
Once through this door
there will be more:
more doors
more blessings
more who watch and
wait for you
but here
at this door of
beginning
the blessings cannot
be said without you
So lay your palm
against the frame
that those before you
touched
place your feet
where others paused in this entryway.
Say the thing that
you most need
and the door will
open wide.
And by this word
the door is blessed
and by this word
the blessing is begun
from which
door by door
all the rest
will come.
– Jan Richardson, from Through the Advent Door: Entering a Contemplative Christmas.
Royalty
Royalty
He was a plain man
and learned no latin.
Having left all gold behind
he dealt out peace
to all us wild ones
and the weather.
He ate fish, bread,
country wine and God’s will.
Dust sandaled his feet.
He wore purple only once
and that was an irony.
–Luci Shaw
Before His hands were bound
A profound meditation from Amy Carmichael:
The last thing He did before His hands were bound.
And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And Jesus answered and said, Suffer you thus far. And He touched his ear and healed him. (Luke 22. 50, 51)
Then the band and the captain and the officers of the Jews took Jesus and bound Him. (John 18.12)
The last thing the Lord Jesus did before His hands were bound, was to heal.
Have you asked yourself, If I knew this was the last thing I should do, what would I do? I have never found the answer to that question. There are so very, very many things that would want to do for those whom we love, that I do not think we are likely to be able to find the chief one of all these. So the best thing is just to go on simply, doing each thing as it comes as well as we can.
Our Lord Jesus spent much time in healing sick people, and in the natural course of events it happened that the last thing He did with His kind hands was to heal a bad cut. (I wonder how they could have the heart to bind His hands after that.)
In this as in everything, He left us an example that we should follow in His steps. Do the thing that this next minute, this next hour, brings you, faithfully and lovingly and patiently; and then the last thing you do, before power to do is taken from you (if that should be), will be only the continuation of all that went before.
Advent’s Sacred Silences
In the quiet of a room they sigh.
In candle’s glow they live under
An icon’s shadow and an unheard cry
And the Truth-bearing words that thunder–
Those Sacred Silences who
tenderly await the soul.
They speak of His coming, not delayed, but near
for etched in unknown depths, they say,
the same Image of the One whose patient tear
slays the heart and gives all away–
In those Sacred Silences who
tenderly await the soul.
Let saving truth’s grammar unbound
Those lips thirsting for syllables of love
To drink deep the wisdom in whose font resound
Those words below of the Word above:
As enveloped in great silences
The soul awaits His coming.
— Anthony Lilles
My creaturehood
For the days and times when we so experience our woundedness and faults and wonder how God can still love us:
God likes me covered with my creaturehood
and with my limits spread across His face.
He likes to see me lifting to His eyes
even the wretchedness that dropped His grace.
~Jessica Powers (from “Creature of God”)
“Your flame is touching ours”
There is a little known Advent tradition–at least little known to me–of using an Advent log, instead of an wreath. “It contains a candle hole for each day of Advent, plus one for the Christmas holy day itself.” Here is a poem I came across that refers to this lovely tradition:
Prayer at the Advent log
The small lights steady
against the dark,
Your flame is touching ours.
Today is the fifth day.
It is a safe fire,
the candles still tall
above the brittle wood
of the birch, the air
damp and chill.
But the days will draw us
inexorably toward
Your celebration,
and again we’ll stand
in the crackling air,
the first days’ flames
licking the log
with their shortened lives,
the length of it
threatened by Your fire,
Your love dazzling our eyes,
and, O Christ,
Your love searing
our nakedness.
(Jean Janzen)
Advent Sunday
Advent Sunday
Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: go ye out
With lighted lamps and garlands round about
To meet Him in a rapture with a shout.
It may be at the midnight, black as pitch,
Earth shall cast up her poor, cast up her rich.
It may be at the crowing of the cock
Earth shall upheave her depth, uproot her rock.
For lo, the Bridegroom fetcheth home the Bride:
His Hands are Hands she knows, she knows His side.
Like pure Rebekah at the appointed place,
Veiled, she unveils her face to meet His Face.
Like great Queen Esther in her triumphing,
She triumphs in the Presence of her King.
His Eyes are as a Dove’s, and she’s Dove-eyed;
He knows His lovely mirror, sister, Bride.
He speaks with Dove-voice of exceeding love,
And she with love-voice of an answering Dove.
Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: go we out
With lamps ablaze and garlands round about
To meet Him in a rapture with a shout.
~Christina Rossetti
Witnesses to Hope 