Saturday of the Second Week of Advent

The Lord grants his loving kindness in the daytime;
   in the night season his song is with me,
   a prayer to the God of my life.  Psalm 42:10

It hits me suddenly.  One moment I am sitting in the high school auditorium, and the next I am propelled with a gasp into the glory of God. Certainly an unexpected time and place.

It is difficult for me to unravel and understand the elements that contribute to this translation. The local community, with all its variety, gathered in this large urban high school. A school that still cares to support a music program. The young voices 150 strong, who create transcendence simply by their willingness to sing together. The student orchestra performing, accompanying, supporting with confidence and expertise. The leadership these young adults take on with such poise.

Or perhaps it is simply the beauty of one young woman standing in the aisle next to my seat, voice raised in exquisite tone, who cannot know that I am now praying, thanking God for the gift of Christ breaking in on me and the world once again.



Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014

Friday of the Second Week of Advent

Blessed be the Lord!
  For he has shown me the wonders of his love in a besieged city.  Psalm 31:21

I bounce down the steps from my office looking for someone to share the good news with. In a day of flying details, I have finally managed to solve a problem that has vexed me for weeks. In the scheme of things, it is a small victory that perhaps only I will appreciate. 

Only much later do I remember to thank God.

It can be easy to miss small moments of grace in the midst of busyness. Especially when the world today can seem to be a place for the besieged and beleaguered. Too many responsibilities, not enough time or energy or resources. Creativity and kindness can falter in the face of demands for constant availability, immediate response, and measurable results. No time to think, no time to rest, no time to be gracious.

In such a time, my victory may be a small one, but thanking God is never small. Practicing gratitude, praising God who loved us into being, not only draws me closer to the one who is the source of life, but also radiates that love out into the world where it combats the mayhem and lifts up the careworn and harassed.

As I recall my tiny moment of triumph, I allow my vision of it to expand until I can see the hand of God. And opening my eyes and heart further, I become aware of God’s presence interwoven into the entire expanse of my day, my life, the universe.

I pray again that I might see the wonders of God’s love.



Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014

Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

Be still before the Lord
   and wait patiently for him.  Psalm 37:7


I mess with the candlewick. I pick up my phone to check the weather. I contemplate adding a coat of polish to my nails. I almost check my email, but pull myself back at the last moment. I return to prayer.

Even after all these years of early morning discipline, even though I crave the pre-dawn quiet, even as I yearn to drop deeply into meditation of the holy, I am challenged by restlessness. I know the blessing of being still before God, but getting still is its own task.

Stillness does not come quickly. It requires surrender, and attention. Sometimes it needs to be carved out of a day. Perhaps I need to mine for stillness, or skillfully scrape my way into its cavern. Or cultivate it like a gardener. 

Or maybe it only requires a moment, a breath.

It is an act of love, I realize. Being still before God is loving God, and taking the chance to be loved by God. Which is hardly a chance at all, but a sure thing. I simply need to be still long enough to know this. Which only takes a moment and a breath and all my life.




Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014

Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

O Lord, you know all my desires,
   and my sighing is not hidden from you.  Psalm 38:9

In the late afternoon I go scrounging for chocolate. I don’t keep it in my office anymore, in an effort to be better about snacking. But I know where the nearest available candy dish resides. I take a small saucer with me as I go, in order to bring some sustenance back to my lair. I still have a lot of work to do.

I find myself selecting the candies by color, choosing the blue ones for the season. I would choose purple if that were an option, as that is my preferred Advent color. I add some red and green ones for good measure, and because there aren’t that many blue ones. Even in my private indulgence, I find a way to mark the season.

But as I contemplate my choice, and the small ritual I have created around this foray, I realize it references a deeper desire. I hunger both for the waiting time and for the result. I am drawn to God’s impending revelation of love into the world, but also to the expectancy itself. I yearn for the in-between, because I have found it a place of trial and testing and hope and faithfulness and trepidation and joy, and I know that the new life that comes next will be strong and sure and surprising.

I stand quietly for another minute. Then, chocolate in hand, I go about my day.





Image Copyright: kalani / 123RF Stock Photo 
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

How priceless is your love, O God!
   your people take refuge under the shadow of your wings.  Psalm 36:7

I cannot erase the chill from the back of my neck; rather, despite my wool sweater it creeps further down between my shoulder blades. As my second cup of tea steeps, I stand in front of the kitchen heating vent, greedy for its warmth. The warm spot, my daughters used to call it when they were little.

They would sit on the floor in front of this vent on a cold winter morning and I would serve them breakfast and hot cocoa with a footstool as their table. A place of comfort and refuge from the draftiness of our old house.  That battered stool is in front of me now, and I can’t imagine their bodies ever being small enough to sit beneath it. But they were.

And now I stand here, wishing I were small enough to huddle in front of the vent and let its heat waft over and around me. But another warmth envelops me as I call to mind the wings of love that protect me from the drafts of doubt and discontent. The wings of God that can enfold me even as I stand tall and move into my day. How priceless this refuge that travels with me.

I finish my second cup of tea, and the chill is gone.




Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014

Monday of the Second Week of Advent

Show me your ways, O Lord,
   and teach me your paths.  Psalm 25:3

As we leave the movie theatre in the cold rain, I try to think of the best route home. We need to pick up our daughter from her friend’s house along the way, and I try to picture the triangle in my head: theater to friend’s to home. But I can’t quite visualize the way, so I reach for my phone, not to call for directions, but to use the map.

How did we come to this, I think, as I contemplate the technology in my hand? When I was my daughter’s age, finding the way would have been such a different story. And when my mother was a girl?

The app on my phone lights up with three possible routes. Of course, why didn’t I think of going that way? It makes so much sense.

And as I drive, it occurs to me that like the highlighted possibilities on my phone, the ways of God are many. There is not one right path to discover and then choose. And in this time and place, finding the way is a different story. But nevertheless, it is a story and a path that traces it’s way from my mother to me and to my daughter. And even farther back, and even farther forward. I travel a way that is ancient and new. 

I drive on into the night and the rain and the endless possibilities of the loving ways of God.



Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014

Saturday of the First Week of Advent: The Feast of St. Nicholas

Praise the Lord, all you nations;
   laud him, all you peoples.

For his loving-kindness toward us is great,
   and the faithfulness of the Lord endures for ever. Hallelujah!   Psalm 117

I dig out the shoes from underneath the coat rack and place them by the front door. A pair of combat boots and a pair of canvas sneakers. Into each go a handful of gold-foiled chocolate coins. It is the feast of St. Nicholas.

I had to run out to the store last night to buy the coins because I had forgotten to run the errand earlier. I debated for a moment. Did I want to get up from the warmth of our dinner table and go out into the cold rainy night? My girls are in high school, so perhaps this tradition is no longer necessary. 

When we started this tradition so many years ago, it was a celebration and a teaching. We wanted to give St. Nicholas his own space on his feast day, and so to teach our children about a real person, the Bishop of Myra, who became known across the centuries because he did care for children, and the poor, and he gave out of his bounty and his deep love for Christ. 

And now, as I wait for my teenagers to rise late on a Saturday morning and discover the chocolate treasure, I realize the simple joy this custom brings into our house carries real power. In this culture that celebrates the season with the garish and the sentimental, how significant it is to eke out sacred space. For my girls to receive, but also for me to give. Marking it. Setting it aside. A signpost on the Advent journey pointing to the love of Christ and the enduring faithfulness of God.


Read more about St. Nicholas here.
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014