Advent 23: Stretching

The inner room is filling with light, with shadow.
More light and more shadow.
Long, quiet, holy darkness.
Short, sparkling light-filled days.

The little shack in C.S. Lewis’s Last Battle, and the Tardis in the Doctor Who television series, have something in common with you and with me. Each structure–shack, time machine, and human–is bigger are the inside than it appears from the outside. Outside, a normal-looking structure, but inside, a whole world of wonders.

Here in these days of quiet and clamor, of enfolding darkness and bedazzling light, we walk through the inner rooms like we walk through the old house that recurs in our dreams, exploring the nooks and crannies, the magical spaces and the dark closets. It’s so big! I never knew this room existed! Look! Over here is a room full of treasures! This one is dark and quiet, and contains only a tiny wooden box. Whisper. Shout! These stairs end in a pantry, and those go up to the roof. Open this door. And this one.

Feel the vast spaces within you, knowable, unexplored, waiting for you to enter and experience who you are in your deepest inner rooms. Stretch your hands up and out. Draw in deep breaths. Stretch and stretch. You are larger on the inside.

As the wise man who left us yesterday reminded us:

“Be here now.” –Ram Dass

Stretch. Expand. Explore.


Gratitude List:
1. Back home with the cats
2. People who do things simply to watch the delight on the face of a child
3. My marvelous father, born on this day. What an example of tenderness and compassion he is.
4. I am pretty sure that seven-bird V that just winged its way above the hollow was snow geese.
5. Today is going to be a work day. I kind of dread hard work–I’d rather be playing with yarn or making cookies or writing poems, but when this day is done, I will feel much more free in my spirit to do those other things.

May we walk in Beauty!

Do You Remember?

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Today’s poem is a two-fer: write about love and/or anti-love.  I usually really like his double challenges, and I try to work with the polarities.  Today’s poem, however, came out purely on the love side.  I have been re-reading my gratitude lists from this time last year, and one of those gratitudes inspired this poem, which is for my father, whom I and the bluebirds love:

I know this is true,
but it may be a secret:

The Archangel Michael is a bluebird
who gazes into your window
waiting for the moment
you walk into the room:

those clear watching eyes,
the quiet murmuring chirrup,
dip of the head and flip of the wing.

There is a girl on a swing
singing of bluebirds
and you are pushing her so high
she flies.

Gratitude List:
1. Bluebirds and you
2. Chickweed and you
3. Organizing and sorting and you
4. The farm crew and you
5. Free magazines at the library, and you

May we walk in Beauty!