"I looked across at the farmer and his wife who were sitting in upright kitchen chairs watching me with quiet benevolence. The two faces had something in common--- a kind of beauty. You would find faces like that only in the country; deeply wrinkled and weathered, clear-eyed, alight with cheerful serenity. "I raised my glass. … Continue reading december ttmmh
By Hannah Mead “I am coming,” He whispers, with cypress smoke and cinnamon. I’m waiting, straw clutched between cold fingers pushed through impatient pockets. But tonight, the promise of dawn lingers heavy below the horizon. Perhaps Venus is pinned like a diamond in the darkness behind the shed that tilts, weary, at the bottom of … Continue reading Advent
By Joel Melton … and we wait. we know the end, how the promise was kept, and is being kept. He has and is and will come. the advented Light still breaks -- is adventing -- in our night-like days. we wait like winter. the curse is being reversed. redemption’s cycle spins in the song … Continue reading …
By Rachel S. Donahue We once traveled by nightin a country far awaywhere the lights of men were few and far between.In the midst of that great darkness,a tiny spot of lightblinked hope for miles, could easily be seen. When wrapped in a cloak of darkness,small lights shine brighter still,their brilliance heightened by the lack … Continue reading Magi, Martyrs, and Messengers
By Esther Hartman and sometimes, sometimes, the shadow is married to the lightin a grand ceremony of temple curtains torn in two,and the welding of spark to suffering, of hideous to holy,and light keeps replacing bulbs in all dark’s hiding placeshoping he’ll finally see himselfand the great rivals called death and lifefind each other ravaged … Continue reading The Great Opposites
"We need not despise happiness simply because there is so much unhappiness. We should not arrogantly push away the kind hand of God because God's hand is otherwise so hard." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer Throwing a football around the church field Maples holding the light Planting bulbs Long Wednesday night foyer conversations Coffee and brownies across … Continue reading november ttmmh
Tom and his wife both came to last month’s neighborhood board meeting, which is always a rehearsal of restrictions and property lines. Tom, of course, wore big overalls over his hoodie. When the meeting was over, I asked his wife about her new greenhouse, and she showed me pictures of plants climbing the windows, which … Continue reading Fence Lines
The winds have turned cold, and I've been itching to get out in them, so I walked down to the greenhouse last week where I found a surprise among the wreckage (summer storms tore the tarps from the frames, leaving the house half-naked and pooled with rainwater): A beautiful bouquet of kale grew right where … Continue reading Kale Soup and the Sea
Someone gave me a composition notebook for my fourteenth birthday and told me to write blessings in it, to number them. I think the goal was 10,000, but I lost count after awhile, and the “thanksgivings” turned into little observations of the world around me: The house is quiet this morning. Elsie learned to roll … Continue reading The Things I’ve Seen
"For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true)..." ~ Ephesians 5:8-9 Tchaikovsky's 4th in F minor at Powell Symphony Hall Velvet seats, red carpets, wide stairways, ceilings … Continue reading october ttmmh
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