The smell of snow

The imperceptible shift, a slipping into place, some vast force steals in silent. And we wake to a different world, one hushed and reverent. 

Muted hues quiet the noisy orb, and while everything and everyone still screams and rushes around, the veil transfigures it all, shushing it to the background, bidding it cease striving, telling it, “Be still.”

The landscape has not changed; no blanket of snow hides the shapes of rock and tree, no blizzard winds blur our senses, no extreme temperatures threaten our endeavours . .. and yet, everything alters, because we can smell the promise.

Somehow, the pledge of snow’s arrival sets the heart to rest, and awakens it to lively dance. This paradox slips into cognisance without a syllable, and we grapple for words to describe the transformation. We inhale light and quick, wonder catching our in our breath. Yet we exhale long, the sudden revelation of beauty inviting us to pause and gaze in reverent stillness.

The mingling atmospheres of heaven and earth harmonize, their vibrations unifying. And somewhere deep in our soul, we hear the music. When nature sings clearer than our screaming, false-inflated cacophony, worlds still, and we remember. Sometimes it’s only a whisper, and don’t whispers speak louder than our bustling shouts and crazy winds?  

Words float through the calm. . .  our minds can’t quite make them out, but the heart understands. We look up. We peer beyond our own realm. We aspire soul-ish for a dream outside our experience and cognition.  And sometimes, redemption consists of quiet nods and paced breathing.

A word comes in the pregnant air, almost undetectable, completely unmistakable to those who hear it: Be still, and know that God is God.

Here we rest. Here we wait. Here we live and scurry and endeavour . . . and aspire, listening for the building echoes, watching for the consummation, remembering the promise, and the One Who made it.

Photos courtesy of google images 

The Shepherd’s Candle, Part 1

Dear Pilgrim,

We lit the third candle in our Advent wreath, and basked in the growing illumination. The Shepherd’s candle, pink candle of Joy, it blushes with pulsing adrenaline. Rosy and healthy, laughing and panting from exercise, perspiration dripping down its stout frame. Its life wastes before our eyes, but what triumphant demise!

It’s nothing special, a wad of wax and some string, melted into shape, then melted out of shape, till it evaporates or cascades into useless puddles onto the wreath and table. Simple, inexpensive, basic: it lives to be consumed as a memorial of another’s life. Significant only for what it represents, not for what it possesses inherently; still, it melts away merrily.

Why did the Shepherds have so much joy? Why is their candle different from all the others: that tacky pink that clashes with our decor and insults our sense of refined, contemporary design?

Tacky shepherds—low, odd-ball-ish, smelly, ignorant of life’s finer pleasures, bankrupt of education and station and the ability to better themselves—somehow, they possessed this joy. Children brushed aside, shooed to lowly, simple tasks, out of the way, out in the quiet lonely fields.

The soul sighs: so what Hope is there to keep us going? What Love can spur us to become something more than we have been? What can make this dreary life significant? What if we never can alter what we do?

“Do not be afraid,” he said first. Fear calculates the future without God.

Fear believes good will not come.

Maybe that’s why he said, “I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.”

We have to know that God is fundamentally, ultimately good . . . we see the opposite in our world and in our hearts. We need assurance of what we can barely whisper, wishing it to be true, unsure if it can be . . . knowing we are utterly undone if it is a mirage. What is the point, if there is no good?

We just don’t expect God’s revelation to come.

We don’t look for Him.

Maybe that’s why He shakes us out of our minds with angelic choruses bellowing His reality. “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: you will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

These stirrings, these cravings, these groans and bellows and heavenly fireworks . . . these mark the journey of Joy, and take us deeper yet . . . .

Expectation`s Pardox

Cocks crow in the courtyard; cat pads soft on window ledge, returning from last night’s prowl. Sun opens her eyes, soon to fling her scarlet and purple morning robe over her shoulders. He squints in the fading darkness. Even in full day, his light is dim. He lies still a moment, preparing his mind for the difficult task ahead.

Heaving knobby knees and calloused feet off the bed, he sits upright, letting everything settle again. Once, he could stretch and pop and wrestle stubborn joints into lubricated submission. Not now. But he must move, however slowly. He must keep going. There’s a promise to be fulfilled.

He splashes water on leathery face, rubbing it into countless wrinkles. He works shaking arms into his robe, worn and thin, like him.

Stepping into the street, sun dances off his balding head, laughing in her morning play. He takes in everything his senses will proffer. Muted bellows from the neighbour woman: that’s nice. Diminished smells from passing donkey and horse: he won’t miss that. Children run and crouch and play in the street. Their voices muffle. He smiles, sad. He remembers ordering his own children to hush. Now, if he could only hear the cheery banter. But he must bend over painful and look directly into their eyes, watching their mouth, their expression, to understand their words. The little ones see him, and rum towards him. This ritual he loves! He puts gnarled hands on their soft black heads, and blesses them. Off they run again, and he watches them go, seeing beyond his limited vision, into the ebb of time itself, sweeping the children away.

Sigh . . . life sighs these days, remembering sweetly what was past, lingering long in the beauty of now, wondering what will become of tomorrow. His days fade into silence. But still he waits.

“Go . . . the temple.” He knows this voice. The voice from Beyond itself, beckoning him deep within, sustaining him when all other voices weaken.

Ancient heartbeat quickens. He glances as he passes people in the streets. Do they see? Have they heard? What news and developments has he missed the past weeks? But everyone looks normal. No one is looking. So, then, what is he looking for? What will the promise look like?

Mounting stone steps, pausing shorter than usual to catch his light breath, he enters the temple, scanning, searching . . . for what? No celebration, no military display, not even a debate or political discussion. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He waits near entrance, looking out and in; maybe It left already, maybe It is not here yet. His mind spins while his eyes skim. Calm down, man, or you’ll kill yourself waiting. Intentionally slowing his breathing, trying to relax the tell-tale thumping of his heart.

How long has he waited? What does it matter? He has waited his entire life . . . what are a few more minutes, or days, or slowing, fleeting weeks?

Soft cooing—he can hear it! Clear and sweet, like when he was young! He follows the sound: the man with the cage of doves. The girl with him . . . holding . . . It. This is It: the Consolation of Israel. Realization rushes over, through his entire being, a wave of such life! He rushes over, ignoring the resisting heart palpitations, screaming joints.

He reaches them. He takes the Consolation up in his arms. Nothing out of the ordinary; this is all custom. But everything out of the ordinary . . . no one was looking for Consolation to come this way.

He gazes long into the face: the eyes, the mouth, the tiny ears . . . everything yet to enter into its prime, everything yet to come. The Consolation is an infant. Isn’t it right that the God Who promised blessing through children should come to redeem His people through a child? This baby, an infant needing consoling, He IS the Consolation.

And he speaks, trembling, strong, barely audible, a voice coming from somewhere deep within, where Hope has kept faith all these years.

“Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

And expectation’s paradox teaches us that a promise received in the heart will change and alter its host; so that when promise is realized in a way no one expects, the trusting heart will recognize it, and glory.

—Musings on Simeon from Luke 2 . . . based on a sermon by Josh Harris: Simeon`s bucket list—

Promise in Dust

The living air exhales caramel breaths—warm, golden, delicious. Every breeze wafts a new hue across the senses.

Sky blinks cloudless, batting blue eyes. As though straining with the labourers, she flushes deeper pigment—and puddle and slough reflect her cobalt complexion.

Grass exchanges velvet green coats for linen browns, transforming assumed undergrowth into a menagerie of bristle, straw, mulch clump, and dulling emeralds.

And in the evening light, even dust glimmers beauty. Suspended like organza sashes of some grand dancer, it floats and lingers, slivers of milky mist, whiffs of toffee.

Sweeping, inviting, lingering—dust envelopes the pilgrim, calling deeper, pointing beyond; hinting, always hinting, making one look and ponder.

The fields waiting consummation, grain laying dead in bundled rows—silent, still, finished. Soon it will be in bin and truck and terminal, this living death of waiting, till at last it can die again in soil, and truly live. Machines churning in procession, orderly, stoic, pitiless, dutiful; their drivers squinting in receding sun. Saved all year, for these ten days of labour, red and green and yellow they plod; cutting, collecting, shelling, saving the promises in hopper and auger.

Soon, it will pass. Soon, machines will rest in Quonset, seeds will wait in bins, farmers will break for winter blizzards. Next year, we will do it all over again. We will hope, and pray, and wish each other well as we work the land, and the soil works into us.

Colours deepen, then fade. A giant Canada goose points south, stationary, glimmering, then withering into wisp of cloud.

We sigh with the land. We fade with the land. We groan with the land. And we bear fruit, in season, like the land, our lives reflecting and refracting colour from the Light of Life.

And we, with the land, remember, and live promise.

“While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
winter and summer,
and day and night,
shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22