For unto us a child is born... again

It was a lovely Thanksgiving. We had beautiful weather when rain had been predicted. The table was set with family silver, china and crystal, reminders of loved ones no longer with us. And gathered around our table on Thursday... mama, Natalie(a young friend in town for a month), our son Adam and his wife Michelle, and the centerpiece for our thanksgiving this holiday, their baby son Rowan (long o please, like the Archbishop of Canterbury). Rowan is a bundle of joy wrapped in diapers and onesies.
Adam and Michelle are tender parents, holding Rowan with loving arms and hands. All babies are a journey into a land of wonder and delight, fatigue and frustration, fear and trembling, an affirmation of life as gift. This baby with his father’s nose and his mother’s eyes holds the promise of God with us once again. I hold Rowan, he looks into my eyes, smiles at me with the corners of his mouth turned up, delighted to be in my presence and like Mary, my heart sings a Magnificat.
Last night Michael and I watched a movie... Eat, Pray, Love... that is taken from the story of one woman’s journey towards wholeness. The main character travels to Italy, India and Bali. The lesson she learns at a Hindu ashram is to forgive and love herself. She speaks of God in each of us, honoring and loving God in each of us... Incarnation in India, a land where images of God in us are overwhelming in numbers and need.
It is easy to see and delight in God Incarnate in sweet babies. Their smiles ignite joy sparklers in our hearts. The more difficult vision is to see God in us, the tired, mistake making grown ups who are weathered and worn by life. Our image of God is often buried under years of worry, struggle and pain with joy an infrequent visitor.
This Advent I will hold in my heart the joy that comes when I see God in others, babies and grouchy old men, worried women and fractious children, those who live with grief and those who have yet to experience the sting of death. Now that I am closer to my end than my beginning, I will not take joy for granted. I will search for the Christ Child born again and again in each of us, celebrating the presence of the Source of Life in each life gift. Thanks be to God for being born again and again and again. For unto us a child is born. Unto us, a gift is given...

Goin' home.. I'm still goin' home

I sat in daddy’s chair at the kitchen table where everything is still the same and utterly different. The counted cross stitch framed in an embroidery hoop, a Christmas present from Aunt Peg, hangs on the wall over the table as it has for years. The stove, thirty years old and still working, is the same one my sister and I used to can tomatoes on summer visits to put up vegetables from daddy’s garden. Most of the little gold flecks are worn off the formica counter tops, polished off by years of cleaning. The empty space is full and overflowing with people and memories invisible to everyone else but clear as day to mama and me.
The truck is loaded with boxes filled with canned food, clothes, household goods, flowers to transplant, a visible symbol that mama will no longer be able to stay by herself in her home. As we walk out the door to leave for North Carolina she says, “If I ever get back, I want to bring the white rose, the first one I planted when we moved here.” If I ever get back...
We stop in Atlanta to visit our friend Pitts Hughes, now ninety four and one half by her reckoning. A year has passed since she made the move to an assisted living home and we had not seen her new place. Pitts moves around in a wheelchair now but the movement of her mind and spirit is unhampered as always. Mother God is still trying to order the universe and most of the time, it co-operates. I watch as we move through the halls, Pitts calling each helper by name and introducing us to them. They touch her, pat her shoulder and share a laugh as we make our grand procession to the parlor. Mama and Pitts talk about the process of leaving home and the adjustments required. Pitts moved often during her professional years so her home has always been with people not places.
I wake in the night and lie quietly pondering, wondering how I will do when my time comes to leave home. Mama and Pitts, forced by age and health to leave their homes, are my teachers. Pitts is surrounded by friends and is still in the same neighborhood where she lived. Mama has moved to another state to be with family. Each has lost and gained in their moves... lost independence and gained a new home. Home is in their hearts, their memories.
All our lives we go home from one house to another, farm, apartment, suburbs, city. And some day, some still, quiet day, we will all go home, home to our Beginning and our End, a Home that waits where love never ends and our moving days are over. Dear One, give me traveling mercies, I pray for the trip home and keep us all in the hollow of your hand. Amen.

Going home, going home
I’m jus' going home
Quiet like, some still day
I’m jus' going home

Nothing lost, all is gain
No more fret nor pain
No more stumbling on the way
No more longing for the day
Going to roam no more

Morning star lights the way
Restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life yes begun