Mid-winter walk

It's a brilliant Sunday afternoon. From a cloudless sky the sun's warmth and radiance bore into me like a laser. I'm on a short mid-winter walk. Although the air is crisp (the temperature is 35 degrees), I shed my coat and walk a little faster. Old friends line the road on both sides -- grandmother maples, many probably more than 100 years old. Sugaring buckets lie ready at the base of many of them. Bill has started sugaring, and he and Sr. Catherine Grace have already cooked up seven or eight gallons of pure maple syrup. These maple trees give so generously in every way. I salute them as I pass.

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A rose e'er blooming

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose..."Now listen! I'm no fool. I know that in daily life we don't go around saying 'is a...is a...is a...' Yes, I'm no fool but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years."

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She Ponders

The steady plod of donkey feet

triggers bone-deep pain

foreshadowing a tearing anguish to come.

In the stillness between hollow hoof-clops

She ponders growing fear.

Endless hours later,

her lifeblood fresh on a stable floor,

a tiny, soundless thing

stares through newborn eyes

at the pattern of her face;

and she ponders new Being.

Strangers appear

from the monotonous nowhere of

humble labor—

impelled by terror through the night,

shy witness to the Mystery unfolding before them;

she ponders the strangeness of family.

Exhausted, her weary

eyes drift into the black night sky

where one star, brighter than all the rest,

captures her gaze a moment too long.

Sudden Light pierces her soul;

and with shuddering, shattering clarity

she knows, beyond understanding, an awe-filled future ...

tears spill, hot and unbidden,

mingling underfoot with straw and blood.

For years to come

she will ponder all these things in her heart.

From Advent to Christmas ...

The women travel to the manger This week I'll put up the creche on a table in the Great Room. (First, Bill reminds me, he will have to haul rocks from St. Aidan's storeroom to St. Cuthbert's.) Once I have the rocks, I pile a table with various levels of books, cover those with fabric, then carefully and aesthetically pile on the rocks — large and medium flat rocks, small and tiny stones. I make a cave, and on top of that, a wild place for shepherds. Below the cave, a large flat stone creates a plaza, and stone steps wind gradually up to the cave and into the wilderness. Lichen, small pine cones, Spanish moss form sparse vegetation.

Then I unwrap the people and animals from their boxes; musicians, peasants, travelers, shepherds and sheep, pigs, a goat, and a little cat family. I also unwrap Mary and Joseph who begin their travels toward the creche somewhere far across the room. Jesus is hidden in a sugar bowl. In another room altogether, the kings begin to discern the star but won't arrive until Epiphany on January 6.

Mary and Joseph will arrive at the cave on Christmas Eve, but Jesus won't arrive until after Christmas Mass. We'll sing around the creche. All week, various groups of creche figures will come to the mouth of the cave and reverence the child.

May this Child whose birth brings heaven to earth and earth to heaven, bless you and keep you in deep love, peace, and reverence. Amen.

Here's a beloved poem which Sister Elise set to music and which we love to sing at Christmas.

We saw Thee in Thy balmy nest,
Young dawn of our eternal day;
We saw Thine eyes break from the East,
And chase the trembling shades away:
We saw Thee, and we blest the sight,
We saw Thee by Thine own sweet light.

To Thee, meek Majesty, soft King
Of simple graces and sweet loves!
Each of us his lamb will bring,
Each his pair of silver doves!
At last, in fire of Thy fair eyes,
Ourselves become our own best sacrifice!

—Richard Crashaw 1613(?)-1649
Verses from the Shepherd's hymn

Ground Zero, reprise

I went to Ground Zero to pay my respects for the first time at the new memorial that has been created there, opened to the public on 9/12/11. I had obtained a pass the month previous, and when I arrived at the security post announcing the entrance, there were hundreds of others in lines six-deep which snaked round and round through various checkpoints. As I joined the thong and inched forward with the pack, I felt claustrophobic and wondered if I could make it.

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