Advent
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morewhen it’s hard to believe in miracles this Christmas
On Monday, December 12 th, 2011The dates etched into that one clay plate are over 2,000 years old. That makes the boys gape. Makes them press their fingers against the glass of the exhibit. Trying to touch time. Trying to believe. Trying to hear me as I read the museum’s plaque in hushed tones: “Wizened and carbonized, these dates were discovered in the caves of Qumran… in the caves with th...
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moreWhen Christmas Gets Radical: Whose Birthday Is It Really?
On Wednesday, December 07 th, 2011I t’s been over ten years of nothing under the Christmas tree here. Strange, the way children teach men.:: It was dark, I do remember that. Bedtime. Smoothing back hair, kissing foreheads. One round moon hanging large outside the window, an ornament dangling off stars, decorating the night. I had gifts to wrap. So, pull up the blankets. Prayers. And the...
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morePlanting Seeds of Kindness & Straw for the Manger {A Family Advent Activity}
On Thursday, December 01 st, 2011Power plays and big takeovers, it’s the way the world and Wall Street turns. But God, when He comes, He shows up in this fetal ball. Just this seed unfurling, impossible power contained in the small. The beginning of December, that is what I set out on the counter: a bowl of seeds. Through Advent, through all the waiting days, waiting for the Bread of Heaven to come down, we ...
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moreHow the Wait till Christmas can be Weightless
On Wednesday, November 30 th, 2011Steam rises from loaves of holiday bread cooling on the counter. The snow keeps coming down. Checking off the to-do lists in late afternoon: lay out disthtowels to wrap the bread loaves up in, tie with sprig of cedar, a bow of raffia — gifts for the neighbors, the mailman, the farm vet. Hard to wait for loaves to cool....
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moreThe Real Biggest Greatest Give-Away Ever {What if We Renamed Christmas?}
On Tuesday, November 29 th, 2011When they ask for a story, I pull up blankets and cover them with words. I pluck words out of thin air, the only way any story comes — the way the Word came. Something from nothing, a gift handed down. “Once upon a time…” This will be one of those stories— a possibility. “Once upon a time, there was a baby.” “Was I the baby? Is this a...
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more{Free} Jesse Tree Advent Family Devotional
On Wednesday, November 23 rd, 2011We can’t wait to begin the waiting days of Advent! Might we offer you the gift of a free family devotional? Each of the 25 days of the Jesse Tree Family Devotional journey includes: The full Bible text of the day’s reading in either NCV or NIV (of course, feel free to read from your own Bible, if you’d pre...
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morethe celebration doesn’t {have to} end
On Monday, December 27 th, 2010God comes naked and needy and it makes no human sense except God in the full weight of glory might crush us and God as a Babe, vulnerable and scandalously helpless, He draws all the weak and the limping near without fear. It’s really possible that Love might carry swaddled Deity in the crook of our hearts. And that’s when I think it on Christmas morning, when I bur...
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moreDawning
On Saturday, December 25 th, 2010Iin wooden pews, late in our dark woods, we sing of God curled, a pod, between trough planks, God skin come for bark to lay down on and pull us close, and in the pitch of our forests, we feel the rising, Love like a breaking Dawn. ...
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morethe real hope of all wise men: God on the Blue Dot
On Wednesday, December 22 nd, 2010It’s after midnight and he’s driving down the middle of an empty country road when he just flicks the headlights right off and the black isn’t black after all. “Look at it!” I whisper it out the passenger window. The bowl of milky moon’s spilling over snow sleeping fields. “You could drive the whole way home without the lights on.R...
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moreHow to Wait for Christmas
On Thursday, December 16 th, 2010Whenever Christmas begins to burden, it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ. The Farmer, he brings home these four miniature candles with the groceries and pecks me on the cheek. Crazy, how wonders never cease! So I set out just these four candles — one by the sink. Atop the cabinet. Before the hearth. At the ...
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moreTo Set Up a Complete Nativity Scene:
On Wednesday, December 15 th, 2010It’s Day 85 of my life-after Guatemala that I set out the nativity; it’s only now that I remember that the baby would be about 85 days old too. It’s my only souvenir from Guatemala — a red soil formed Mary, three clay-combed wise men, a Babe the size of a thimble. Headbands for the girls, a thin woven bracelet for ...
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moreweekends are for curling up with good books
On Saturday, December 11 th, 2010W hen the snow piles high and the light falls dim, the books can stack high too …. and the blankets and the pillows and one quiet moment gently upon another. The turning of pages is the silent rhythm of the early winter evenings. I confess, many books keep me a dabbler, but Mark Buchanan’s Spiritual Rhythm: Being with Jesus Ever...
