December Star Solstice darkness persists longer than sun’s extended rays, which reach my fingertips eight minutes later than when they first sizzled out of their thermogenic home. Electromagnetic radiation warms cool blue earth, invisibly envelops my skin. In the chill of Cimmerian nights, a tender light pierces the pining, crepuscular hour. […]
Light in the Darkness Here we are—mid-December: a season of celebration that in at least one uber-educated, moderately liberal, American college town (mine), people seem confused by the juxtaposition of culture and tradition; tradition and church. Mid-December and there is more darkness than light, so we spend more time in fluorescent spaces sprinkled with glittering […]
The word long seems to pervade December. A long year is coming to a close. The longest night of the year makes our hearts anxious for the dawn. We celebrate the birth of our long-expected Jesus. We long for the crisp beginning of a new year. When Advent arrives, we long for the second coming […]
It’s here!!! Our podcast interview with Abby Ball on her new Advent devotional Contemplating Christmas: An Advent Devotional For Finding Hope in the Dark. “Part of my heart for this book is for those people who find Christmas continues to be hard. So you might not be single like I was. For you, it may […]
As I flick on the switch, the tiny bulb meant to act as the star casts a warm glow over the scene below. “You have a lot of nativity sets, Mom,” my son comments after he helps set up the wooden, ceramic, hand-carved, and clay sets next to the snow globe manger scene and the […]
A light glares in my eyes as I’m lowered into position. Handheld torture devices encircle my head. I am at the mercy of my interrogator. There is no mincing of words in THE CHAIR. There is only cutting to the quick: “How was your Thanksgiving?” she leans in. The dreaded loaded question. (You know.) How […]
Adaptation from Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness by Liuan Huska Chapter 10, “A Community of Wounded Healers” We are not a few weeks post-Advent, but I am ready to repent and lament again. Call me melancholy, but Advent and Lent are my favorite seasons in the church calendar. […]
Advent is a time of waiting, a longing for Messiah in a special way, looking back to the first coming of Jesus as a baby and forward to the second coming of Christ as King. Seasonal Scripture readings link both “advents,” making Advent a season of paradox. Christians celebrate an already-but-not-yet faith: Christ has come, […]
Click here for Audrey Assad’s “Winter Snow.” Lyrics & Light image designed by Amanda Tingle Taylor.
I the Lord do not change. -Malachi 3:6 The sky has hardened into an iron atmosphere, layering itself with blankets of clouds thick and full of snow, which will no doubt spill to earth within days. As I inhale the heavy air into my lungs, it no longer soothes; it stings. I dig my hands […]
It’s 3 AM, and “Pachelbel’s Canon” is on loop in my head. So much for a silent night. Is that too much to expect after a year of noise? Apparently. More music. More tossing and turning. More of the sheet escapes from its comfy home between mattress and box spring. Newly exposed feet embrace a […]
They felt litter thicker than matchsticks in my hands; her tiny fingers seemed like they could snap in an instant. I was mesmerized by her smallness in my arms though her presence filled my entire life. As I held my firstborn in the dark of her bedroom, humming a song to her in the same […]
I’m in the city that never sleeps, and neither can I. Fifty-eight floors above are surely enough to free me from the fray below. But even way up here I can’t escape the truth that me and this metropolis are soulmates. Because in spite of every virtuous reason it shouldn’t, like this place my heart […]
I never understand more than at Christmas why people become atheists. Often I can understand it and empathize with the feelings and questions that led people there, but at Christmastime, I feel it so much more. It just makes sense. Jesus was born, and where did that get the people of his village, which probably […]
The stillness of winter settles into the land. Snow covers the fields. Birds begin to migrate south. Some days, the hush of the prairie wind is silenced completely. While other days, the wind blows continually and one can barely hear oneself think. Yet there is a solitude that comes with the dawning of these winter […]
Raindrops on rooftops and polka dot mittens Bright lights that flicker and Big Momma’s kitchen Brown chorus angels whose robes look like wings These are a few of my favorite things. Buttermilk cornbread and crisp chicken drumsticks Hotels with stairwells and greens that are handpicked Wildflowers that spread in dry deserts I’ve seen These […]