Our angel as "The Angel"

Waiting in the wings for her grand entrace as the Angel Gabriel. Placing the baby in Mary's arms as the narrator says : " And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. "

Bless her heart! She had to hold her arms up all the way through "It was on a Starry Night" She did it with a smile on her sweet face too :0) That's my girl!

Singing "Away in a Manger, with all her little angel friends.

Thee Ende ~

Before the Manger

I have a very dear member of my family, who is of a very practical turn of mind.
She likes to say things like, "Yes but you have to live in the real world" and "well you just have to get on with it don't you" And she knows what she is talking about much more than I do, she has lived the most self giving, generous (and hard) life of anyone I know. She knows we love her very dearly (don't you ;0) She is unassumingly wonderful, kind and (though she may not like me to divulge....she has the warmest of hearts.)
From her I have learned so much, gifts of the "soul kind"
And she is right, we (I) do have to live in the real world and yes, we do sometimes, whether we like it or not, just have to get on with it. Circumstances can be harsh, crushingly so.
So I was pondering on all this as I was driving home from the shop this morning, my two year old hiccupping breathless sobs after having a tantrum on the way to the car because she wanted to ride in the trolley instead of her baby sister and there was only space for one.
Mmmm, Yes this is the real world, difficult at times, frustrating, often painful, intimidating, fearful, matierialistic, fast paced, individualistic, and as a Christian I also have to live in it. I can't run and hide, cut myself off, seperate completly and permanently. Jesus certainly didn't.
He " just got on with it."
And so must we all.
You know the old children's song about going on a bear hunt and coming to the forest singing
" you can't go over it, you can't go under it, you have to go through it"
Well we all do have to "go through it" Yet... something very wonderful can happen to the "it" we have to go through when we face struggle with the faith and love and hope of God, I'm thinking. The way this lovely person does, so beautifully, unfalteringly, with dignity and grace. Can I too ?
When there is so much pain there seems no hope, yet we still hope. When there is so much darkness we can't see even our next step, yet we still walk with courage and faith. When we are hurt deeply and intentionally, yet still rise from the ground with love and forgivness in our heart. Something, truly, stunningly wonderful happens. Something that transforms the bleakness, harshness and darkness of the world with the power of God's love.
He does not want us to discard the world, like a piece of litter, He loves the world and all people as we love our own children, but more so, our calling ( my calling) is to live it's sorrows and joys through His gifts of faith, hope and love. To see the beauty in the ugliness and the hope in the darkness.
Which in turn, transforms ourselves, and all those we come in contact with. It adorns the ugliness with authentic beauty, and nurtures hope like a tender shoot through the darkness.
Advent becomes not simply a season, it becomes a way of walking, waiting, loving, being. A walking in faith (to a little stable), a waiting in hope (for the birth of the child), a loving in suffering (the way of the cross the way to life).
So I can walk slow to the the Lords pace. Even when it feels like the world is rushing by like a motion blurred photograph around me, I can take joy from a frost coverered leaf or berry. When there is a pull to buy more and more, I can turn away and instead give more and live a little more simply. And live that simplicity and with hope in my heart. When there is struggle and frustration I can use His love, wisdom and patience to "come through it". When there is mess, and anxiety, I can look to His face and trust, "come throught it."
And in a very small way I can bring that "coming through it" as a gift before the manger.

( With thanks to Kath for the inspiration. we
LOVE you so :0)

Creating a Manger

"Be Still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10),

Stillness, a word that evokes so many wonderful things for me.
Quietness, peace, acceptance, a listening ear, a raising of the eyes, the planting of the feet.

When I become still, really still, I realise that I am in fact simply waiting. But waiting with a sense of peace, instead of a longing. Advent is the time for waiting isn't it.

But sometimes it's not easy to yield to my heart when my mind is racing with so many things...
So I must try to remember that when I feel myself begin to get caught up in the whir of the wheels of wrapping, organising, making, baking. Crushed under the cogs of last minute preparations, the arrival of sudden guests, the unexpected, unplanned happening that can turn my plans head over heels...
When I find my heart hardened by the length of my lists, falling headfirst into the lie that, Christmas has to look, or be, or sound, or smell, or taste a certain way. Lord,
Please remind me to be still. To sit for a while with you. Take moment by moment. Receive your simplicity and peace so that Christmas can become what it should be. Something far from my own plans and ideals. Something far more simple. Let me let You bring Christmas to me. The way it should be. Cast from your mould, Your form.

It is so easy for me to place more importance upon my actions, (What I do) Instead of on my heart, my prayer, (What I am)

It can be hard to still.

With our doing their is a visible measuring stick. Goals can be set and accomplished for all to see. Results are tangible. The tree, the cookies, the mince pies, the shopping, the nativity, the carol service, the helping here, the volunteering there, the wrapping, the cards, the......
Prayer, (being still) is planting a seed in dark earth.
Results are slow at times, sometimes they remain unknown by the one who prays.
But for all the doing we do, the Child cannot be born in a carved manger or shop front stable, or a perfectly prepared dinner and a beautifully laid table, he does not come wrapped up or signed at the bottom of a card.
He is born through the heart. The heart of each person. In some way in some form.
Our heart is the manger.

And at the busiest times. Advent in particular, isn't prayer (stillness) the prerequisite I must remember. To do all I do prayerfully. Prayer is surely the hinge upon which all my doings should turn.

When it is hard to slow and still as demands press down I must remember that it is at these times I need to still the most.

The stillness that comes from waiting prayerfully changes things from the inside out, from within, preparing our work, preparing the grounds, giving strength and wisdom and grace so we may do our work well.

I was thinking as I wrote this that work without prayer is a little like sacrifice without love as Saint Paul puts it: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, enough to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and hand over my body to be burnt but do not have love, I gain nothing."

In sculpture their is a term often used called "negative spaces" which describes the area around and within the sculpture as a form in it's own right. The form created by the artist is held in tension with the negative spaces of emptiness surrounding it and within it. It is these spaces of emptiness that create the very definition of the solid form.

"A Vessel is useful only through it's emptiness. "
Leo Tse

Sometimes I think that prayer works as a these negative spaces do. Almost unnoticed, yet opening windows of space and light along life's paths.

So... I pray that I will find the still places, the negative spaces, dwell for a while, So that the form of my own sculpture begins to fit His mould, His form, a little more.

Carve out a space, a warm place, within my own heart for the Christ's Child to be born.

My Gift

What gift can I bring you Lord,

My hands are empty.

Yet, still I search,

the darkness of this night,

My hand pressed upon,

the frost bitten glass.

My gift melts upon these

fingertips as flakes

of snow,

It folds,

Into the earth

As a sodden leaf.

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Once golden brilliance

upon the gilded branch,

Of another time.

These words that I offer are,

But a child's prayer,

For anything more is too wonderful for me,

to grasp,

and hold, wrap up,

and keep.

In shiny paper, or a musical box,

Or make,

Or own,

Or know.

Maybe you want no other gift,

But these empty hands of mine.

Cold and frozen

as they are,

You do not flinch,

from their touch.

I hear

Your voice in the soft breath of

dawn light,

The first stirring

of a sleeping babe.

In the vapor

of mist that rises,
From the water's edge,

I hear...

You say, You say

Hold out your

empty hands my child.

They are a gift,

your empty hands.

For only empty hands can

Cradle the babe,

Take mine in theirs to

follow my way.

Recieve the nails,

and cup

the Host,

Embrace

my Love,

Your hands

Enclose

All that I need,

Unwrapped, unclothed

Your poverty,

Your gift to me.

Your gift to me.

Days of Winter

I was hoping to upload these a couple of days back but we have all been suffering the effects of winter coughs 'n' colds and other ugly bugs!) So we have been spending time watching far to many family christmas movies for our own good and drinking down lots of honey and lemon tea ( we've gone through three jars!!! over the last couple of weeks.

Anyway as they say a picture ( or ten) speaks a thousand words and as I've pretty much lost my voice anyway I'm liking the sound of silence right now :0)

Peace and Blessings to all :0)

Beneath the Surface

It’s amazing how even the smallest stones in the depths of the river effect the way the water moves at the surface.

The softly spoken reflections of the artist Andy Goldsworthy surveying the “Rivers and Tides” that are the living canvas of his own work.

Art always seeks to reveal the hidden. Find the cause behind the effect.
And although seemingly obscure, even the smallest particle of dust contains within it, the memory of a supernova. In the hidden depths of our heart, we also contain a memory. A memory that its stirred during advent in the way a seed stirs in the frozen, clay soil of winter.

Awoken slowly by a breath of warmth.

A breath of Hope amidst the barren effects of a cold season.

Along the embankments muddy reddened iron pebbles sunken into the riverbeds like red blood cells. Releasing unseen energy and nutrients that feed the life of the water. The small grey slates, plain and ordinary shifting placidly like miniture platlets in the cold depths.
All, in their way, choreographing the dance of currents and ripples that collide and tangle like silk ribbons along the river’s surface.

These unseen things effecting the seen.

• A prayer for the one we love.
• An unnoticed, sacrifice offered once again without hesitation.
• A father’s blessing for his grown child.
• A friendly welcome for a stranger
• The hope to keep forgiving.
• A place of communion carved out of chaos, Before the storms calm with words of faith that whisper “Peace be still”
• A heart that can yeild and remain still to hear that same whisper amongst the clatter of pots and pans and streaming tears.
• As well as in the singing of childish songs never forgotten.
• Sincerity offered, to a jaded ear.
• A joyful reminder returned gratefully to a weary heart.
• The bringing of hope’s candle in the dark corners of the world.
• A gift freely given,


• A Bread broken apart.
  And shared out.
  

Under the surface, unseen, hidden, waiting.
Preparing a course for the rising waters.
Digging deep in the times of drought.
Channelling, streams back to their source.
Each prayer, each sacrifice, each kind word, a gift.

Recieved and given back with in an open palm.

In Advent there is much happening beneath the surface of tinsel and trinkets and gift wrap and holly wreaths of commerciality.

A child is soon to be born in a poor stable in an out of the way town. A place hidden from obvious view.
His birth announced first to the poor, the lowly, the humble and childlike. The ones who are hidden, obscure, unknown, unassuming, unremembered.

Bearing “Beneath the surface” gifts for the babe in the manger. Gifts of the heart.

Each one a small shell that carries the song of the sea as a memory within, till once again the waves reclaim it as their own.
Rising and falling, rising and falling beneath hope's breath.

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Blaise Pascal:
"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble."

Thanking study in brown for the reccomendation of Rivers and Tides

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Let Me Not Keep Christmas . . . . . . . .

"Let me not wrap, stack, box, bag, tie, tag, bundle, seal, keep Christmas.
Christmas kept is liable to mold.
Let me give Christmas away, unwrapped, by exuberant armfuls. Let me share, dance, live Christmas unpretentiously, merrily, responsibly with overflowing hands, tireless steps and sparkling eyes.
Christmas given away will stay fresh—even until it comes again."

Linda Felver

Emmy's song lyrics... ( The one she is playing in the picture ;0)

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Lord, I need you here with me,

In the morning, noon and night,

Even in the depths of my dreams.

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Lord I need you here with me,

Even when I feel I'm strong.

I am still a child in your arms.

*

Take me, Take me,

Where your star shines in the night.

Wake me, Wake me,

Bring me to the morning light.

*

*

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William Cullen Bryant:
"O Father may that Holy Star

grow every year more bright,

And send its glorious beams afar

To fill the world with light."

Collecting Scraps

John Muir:

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

Blaise Pascal

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

J. Lubbuck:

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky is by no means a waste of time.
-

We have been collecting Scraps....
Simple words of thanks, for simple joys. This is a child's way of communion. Pieced together into a Sunday afternoon scrapbook. Pages filled with the wonderment of details. Stiched together, little by little. From the details in nature, to the familiar ways of those dear and close, or the well worn pages of a well loved book sitting cheerily uptop a pile of even more upon the table. Scraps woven together by strong, stitches. Stitches, hand sown with love and care. By His hand.
For this is a gift He gives. A gift that transcends circumstance. A simple gift for all who Hope in Him. A binding of thankfulness. A prayer that weaves in and out of the din and the clatter and the noise just in the same way as it does the peace, of silence and the glinting of icy sunlight between the branches of winter trees.

Scraps of fabric woven together to make a life. Piece by piece. A life for Him, with Him and through Him.
Fragments of beauty, love, joy, memories, voices, dreams, green grass, laughter, songs, sunlight, quiet rain, falling leaves and budding blossoms.
With a thankful heart ready to embrace a love that can turn all things to grace.

And Why not visit lovely Ann's lovely peaceful place for gentle encouragment and inspiration. And many others who are walking in the way of thankfulness over at the GratitudeCommunity...

Tilling Over

“Jesus assumed our flesh; let us give him our own. In this way he can come into the world and transform it.” -Pope Benedict XVI

In a way I take Him everywhere with me.
He is my hands when I hold and comfort a crying child, stroking the hair, wiping the tear dampened cheeks. He is my feet when I walk along the peaceful mountain places and also when I tread the bustling city streets.
Sometimes He takes me to places of quiet, sometimes places of mess and noise and dischord. Other times I am lead to a place of joy, and at other times a place of suffering.

Maybe this is what, a life lived for Him, with Him and through Him becomes. A transformation that begins with me and ends with Him.

Just as a seed holds the blossoming tree so we, each one of us, hold the kingdom in our hearts. And it is from the heart that we are led.

It seems that Jesus often sought out the difficult ways and the narrow ways, the deep valleys and the back streets of the lost and broken before the high, transendant peaks of this world.

He went to the depths of life so He might illuminate them, redeem them, raise them up to the heights in his own resurrected body.

Still, must I, at times follow even here? Beyond my comfort zone. Beyond myself.

Must I step out into a bright light and open space I don't recognise? Become vulnerable?

Like the winter trees striped of their leaves. Simple, naked silhoettes embracing the stark, frozen sunlight of late November.

I like symmetry, order, comfort. I like to design a situation I can plan, regulate and control.
Sometimes it is hard for me to take His hand in mine.
When He comes in the form of a stranger who may upset my routine, or a sick and sleepless child, a messy chore I‘d prefer to leave for tomorrow, or a lonely neighbour, I would rather visit some other time. I begin to loosen my grasp. I busy my empty hands with my own tasks instead of His.

I try to make Him live through me, through my limited, awkward, unyielding body.

Instead of simply letting myself live through Him. Through His limitless, given and graceful form.

I find myself too busy and troubled to simply sit at His feet as Mary did. And seek His still voice in the whisper.
The whisper that can lead me so very gently to the places I really need to be and to the things I really need to do.
To hear a whisper takes a quiet and yielded heart.

Yet oftentimes I clatter around with my dust pan and brush, my dish cloth and scourer looking to clean up the corners, make things look tidy. Even if only in my mind.
Though maybe it’s the messy parts are what I have to get my hands dirty with at times. Embrace in fact.
The difficult places, the narrow roads.
To dig deep into the earth of life where the rot and decay can be over turned, to give life to new shoots. There is growth in the mess of it all, glory in fact, in the opportunity to turn goodness out of a little dirt.

Hard work, tiredness, the monotony of chores, sickness, the crying child, the untidy rooms, the needy and lonely ones I neglect to call on, the unkind comment someone made the other day that still lingers, are all opportunities to dig deep and plant a seed.

A seed that can be planted in my own heart first.

A place where the noonday sunlight of hope and the gentle watering of faith upon that seed may, in time, pollenate a whole garden of budding blossoms.
It is a strange yet beautiful fact of nature that it is only when the flowers have past their bloom and are about to fade and wither that they become most fruitful. For it is not in the beauty of the unfurled petals that they hold their life. It is from their very heart that they release their seed. Their hope of new life.

The soil of my own expectations is constantly being tilled over.
His order and beauty is grown from the earth up; from the depths of the soil to the heights of the heavenly kingdom.

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;" Ephesians 3:18

And during the times when the hard clay of all my pride and selfishness is softened to a fine rich soil, my own limitations are over come by His limitless.

You drench its furrows and level its ridges;you soften it with showersand bless its crops.
Psalm 65:

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Does the farmer plow continually to plant seed? Does he continually turn and harrow the ground? Does he not level its surface And sow dill and scatter cummin And plant wheat in rows, Barley in its place and rye within its area? For his God instructs and teaches him properly.
Isaiah 28

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... For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown ...
Eziekiel 36

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For the earth that drinketh in the rain which cometh often upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God
Hebrews 6 >>

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the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sowe the seed: and the mountains shall drop sweetness, and every hill shall be tilled ... Amos 9:13