Feast of St. Thomas, transferred
The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in,
from this time forth for evermore. Psalm 121:8
“Mom’s going to help me bake for German class,” I hear my daughter announce as we enter the house.
We have just returned from a performance of the Messiah, in which she played trumpet in the chamber orchestra. It is 9:45pm. I have no memory of this baking agreement.
“You are the best, mom,” she says as she starts to pull ingredients and utensils out of the cupboards for her recipe that involves, among other steps, making pastry from scratch. And she’s decided on a triple batch.
There is nothing for it but to dive in. Oh, for the enthusiasm and audacity of a teenager who thinks nothing of starting to bake when the rest of us are ready for bed.
I take an advisory role, and then watch with burgeoning awe as she takes it all on. Checking on the recipe, which she has as a photo on her iPhone, she adjusts without a hitch when something needed is not at hand. It is not my kind of preparation. Not at all. I would have set aside a different kind of time, and measured out the steps in a distinctly different fashion. But as she dances from mixing to sautéing to rolling out dough, it all comes together. And in the end, I am along for a glorious ride.
Advent is ending, the hour is late, and there is nothing for it now but to dive in. Others will have prepared the way, made paths straight, where I have been unable or uninspired. And God watches over all, bemused perhaps when I forget our agreed upon plans, or think there is only one way ahead, one path to the manger. And I realize that my unpreparedness is its own kind of readiness.
Image credit: / 123RF Stock Photo
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
Praise the Lord with the harp;
play to him upon the psaltery and lyre.
Sing for him a new song;
sound a fanfare with all your skill upon the trumpet. Psalm 33:2-3
As I drive home after a flurry of errands, I decide it is time for some Christmas music. I reach for the radio knowing that one of the local stations plays nothing but holiday tunes this time of year. I hope for a good classic carol as I hit the dial and suddenly I am awash in the Kyrie from Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Glorious.
It takes me a moment, then I understand. The sound system is bluetoothed into my phone which is in my pocket. A miracle of technology has accessed the next album on a playlist I had listened to a few days before. I can’t decide which is more stunning—that my phone is playing Bach or the music itself.
I realize that I have turned a corner and am now being carried by the choral momentum headlong into celebration. It is time to sound the fanfare. It is time to announce that someone really important is about to appear and something really fantastic is about to happen. It is time for pomp and flair and flourish. It is time for this miracle. Come Holy Spirit. Come Jesu. Come.
Image: An Angel Playing a Flageolet, Sir Edward Burne Jones
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
I waited patiently upon the Lord;
he stooped to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1
I don’t feel very patient, I think, as I look at the three candles lighted on the Advent wreath. Three candles in. Where is the peaceful waiting? Where is the lingering around the Christmas tree with carols playing in the background? Where is the contemplation of the empty manger? I am waiting impatiently. Patiently. Impatiently. Patiently. Impatiently. The chant goes on in my head. Regardless is the waiting. It would be ironic, I think, to say that I am suffering from impatience, as the word patience means to suffer. To tolerate the uncomfortable without becoming anxious. To bear with.
What is it that I have to bear with this season, that is keeping me unsettled even as we enter more deeply into sacred time?
And there is Mary, bearing the discomfort, bearing the waiting, bearing the Christ child.
What do I have to bear? What new life do I have yet to bear?
Image credit and copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
The Lord, the God of gods, has spoken;
he has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Psalm 50:1
In the shadows that play against the wall at dawn. In the epiphany that comes as I listen to a colleague who sees something I missed. In my thoughts that meander from water to life to baptism as I attend to the thirsty plant on the kitchen sill. The gift of today is that God keeps showing up and showing me.
In this day, this place, this breath. From the beginning to the end of the earth, both in time and in space. All of the earth, and all of its time, and all that these encompass belong to God. And God keeps showing. Through. Above. Around. Within. Always.
Image Credit : designpics
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
Remember your word to your servant,
because you have given me hope. Psalm 119:49-50
I drive through the late afternoon grayness, the lights of traffic and scattered houses painting the streets with bright splashes of color turned liquid by the rain. The translucent mauve sky flattens the treed horizon, and I feel like I am driving inside the wet rather than through it.
The sky darkens from taupe to brown to blue-black as the bare branched trees trace intricate patterns against the fading light, and I am enveloped by the woods, and water, and wonder. What beauty, God’s creation. What endless possibility of color and light and liquid.
As I wend my way through the twists and turns in gathering darkness and damp, I think of the hope that carries me through the flat places, where God’s beauty and possibility do not breakthrough to my heart.
But the gift is more. Not only can I hold on to this hope when my way seems bereft. I have been handed the possibility, no the certainty, that I might discover God in the leaden times that dull my senses.
I pray to see God in the awkward moments and in the dull moments and in the flat times ahead as I drive on into the night and the expectation of illumination.
Image credit: andreiuc88 / 123RF Stock Photo
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
We have waited in silence on your loving kindness, O God,
in the midst of your temple. Psalm 48:8
I awake early, before the alarm, and move into my morning routine with a certain amount of confidence. Lately, I have been hitting the snooze button. But this morning, I am up and alert and can get a jump on the day. There is plenty of time for prayer, and journaling, and preparing for the tasks ahead. Perhaps I can even get into the office early.
Because that would be a good use of my time, to squeeze more work into a day. But somehow my prayer is not that efficient, and my writing is a chore, and I feel the minutes slipping by. Rather than using the time to sink into the now, to relax, to seek God, I think of how much I can do or accomplish. And I miss the gift. Of silence. Of being still. Of emptying, instead of filling. Of trusting that my time, this time, all time, is in God’s hands.
I have not waited in silence. I have not opened my heart to the loving kindness of God. I have not remembered that I am in the presence of the holy, in the midst of the temple.
Someday, but apparently not today, I will give up on getting ahead. But for now…I wait.
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
If we have forgotten the Name of our God,
or stretched out our hands to some strange god,
Will not God find out?
for he knows the secrets of the heart. Psalm 44:20-21
The cacophony is overwhelming. A garish Christmas tree dominates the lobby, guarded by the silhouettes of huge toy soldiers outlined in bright lights. Video screens booming, barely recognizable carols blaring, people on cell phones complaining or cajoling. Noise of privilege. Noise of false promises. Noise of empty symbols. I have barely entered the fray of the mall and already I feel battered.
And I am also pummeled by my own desire. I am hardly immune to the voices that want me to buy just the right gift. That dictate what my husband or teenagers want from me. That guarantee my happiness is available for purchase…and on sale.
It occurs to me that I would not find the mall a gauntlet if I had not given in to these voices before.
But I do not have to give in to them today. God, who knows my secret desires, and how often I worship at the feet of what’s false, also calls me by name, and invites me into deep joy.
In the midst of the tumult I stretch out my heart to toward true love, and I hear clearly the sweet tones of Emmanuel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Morning Star, Prince of Peace.
Image Credit: Rast / 123RF Stock Photo
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
