How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!
O come to us, abide with us…
How do you receive Immanuel ~ God with us?
How silently, how silently
Winter landscape
Winter landscapes have the appearance of death and all the potential of resurrection. The whole mystery and power and glory of life is on display during winter.
How do you lean into that potential?
Fallowness
A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons . . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring. ~ Linda Leonard, The Call to Create
How do you rest in winter seasons?
On the horizon
“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before … What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.” Jan L. Richardson, Night Vision
Gratefulness
“The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests, flowered fields, and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day. What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it.” Michael Josephson
What do you enjoy?
Morning mist
“There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor no created thing can touch.” (German mystic Meister Eckhard)
“…what it means is that your identity is not equivalent to your biography and that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.” John O’Donohue
Do you know that place?
With the Eyes of the Heart 