A Step Back.

Here are wayward snapshots from Thanksgiving, way too many pictures of the girls sitting on a be-curtained, living room couch (non-relatives: permission to skim; McGamma: the dresses are gorgeous!), and some new snapshots-- chocolate-infused-- from yesterday.

I've yet to make four more kinds of cookies (one is cooling and one is in the works) and rum creams, but I've just about had it with baking and confecting. Last night at two in the morning I ran low on chocolate chips, so I ended my candy-making for the night. Now it's nearly two in the afternoon, John arrives home in an hour, and, shortly thereafter, we leave for Nanticoke! Hurrah! (If only we had vacation days to visit the much-loved and much-missed Owens in Long Island, too, that "hurrah" would have been a double hurrah...)

We take with us about 20 pounds of freshly-made chocolates, one batch of toffee bar cookies (and if I get cracking, the rest of the cookies, too), and a carload of gifts for us and them.

Last night, after celebrating Advent, putting the girls to bed, and newly befogged in a candy-making haze, my mother reminded me over the phone that all this peripheral pomp and circumstance doesn't matter one whit. I needed the reminder-- me and my chocolate-smeared face both. (No need to ask the reason for chocolate smudges near my mouth...)

So let us rejoice in the Lord of all that was, that is, and that will be, Who clothed Himself in human skin to walk among us! Hallelujah!

Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest...
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.

His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by dove's voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other sphere.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

- Luci Shaw

First Coming

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

- Madeleine L'Engle