Category Archives: Faith and Spirituality

Faith and Spirituality, Holiday, Nature

Acknowledging that it’s December. . .

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Once again, it’s December.  Too soon, as always.  Although the pre-Christmas busy-ness has been no more extreme than usual, the details have kept my mind too crowded to devote time to writing.  Or to much thought, in general, for that matter.  It’s hard not to let the post-Thanksgiving lead-up to December 25 become an endurance game of checking off never-ending lists.  Lights replaced on the playroom tree?  Yes. Whew. Cross that out.  One small victory.  On to the next task, with many more to follow. 

Last year I wrote about the fine line between reveling in the spirit of Christmas and veering off the deep end into holiday excess.  (See here.)  It’s an issue I guess I’ll grapple with until I’m physically unable to haul out the decorations.  But that might not stop me.  Will I be directing my daughter, or some kindly, younger neighbor?  I hope not.  But then again, no one else could do it to please me. 

Anyway, the wreaths are up on our house and on the old maple stump out front by the road.  The stump survived another year. This summer it played host to a thicket of tall green foliage. 

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As long as any part of the decaying tree remains, we’ll decorate it in December.  For me, it’s a reminder of the true spirit of Christmas: because a baby was born many years ago in Bethlehem, out of death comes new life.  That is the best antidote to holiday excess I can imagine. 

For my first post on this subject, see Deck the Tree Stump, posted almost exactly two years ago.      

Faith and Spirituality, Friendship, Nature

The Red Tree and the Legacy of Eugenia Brown

Today is the day for that steady, late fall rain that washes much of the brilliant color from the trees.  In tomorrow’s sunshine, many branches will be newly bare.  Gutters and lawns, though, will gleam red, orange and gold.  One of the brightest patches in our area will be beneath this magnificent tree.  

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Located behind our church, it’s adorned with some of the most vividly red leaves imaginable.  I’d always assumed it was a maple.  When someone referred to it as an oak, I knew that wasn’t right.  But in September, when Kiko and I were sitting in its shade for the Blessing of the Animals, I realized I was wrong, too.  This was no maple.  The leaves, still green then, were the wrong shape. And there were berries.  Bluish-purple berries, like elongated blueberries.   

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What was this tree?  No one seemed to know.  But mention “that red tree by the church” and everyone knew exactly which one you meant.  I began an internet search.  Googling “trees with blue berries” didn’t provide a quick answer. 

Then I remembered my little tree book, which I’d recently brought from Atlanta.  As I mentioned in a previous tree post, a neighbor gave me the book when I was a child.  She encouraged me to look closely and appreciate nature as we saw it all around us.  She was Eugenia Brown, a Southern lady with a Southern name, a proud graduate of Decatur’s Agnes Scott College some decades before.  (Daddy thought she was too old to be talking so much about her Agnes Scott days.)  Mrs. Brown was a wise woman, and I’ve only recently begun to realize the impression she made on me.  She wasn’t particularly religious, but I can see now that when we examined leaves, acorns, pine cones, shells and flowers, she encouraged my sense of wonder for that vast and easily overlooked array of amazing little things God made.  His little creations–those unique, tiny masterpieces of design–they have always brought me joy.  For that gift, I thank Mrs. Brown. 

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I found the book, and sure enough, I discovered the tree almost immediately, recognizing it from the handy close-up painting of its red leaves and berries.  It’s a Black Gum tree.  Also known as Black Tupelo, Sourgum or Pepperidge.  According to the concise text, “Black Gum leaves are smooth and shiny, turning brilliant red in fall.  The dark blue fruit is eaten by birds and small mammals.”  Bingo. 

Yet again, thank you, Mrs. Brown.  And thank you, God.  Had I not known Mrs. Brown, had she not given me the tree book, I might not be able to find such solace in the beauty of little things and the God who made them.  How wonderful it is that our God designed bright red canopies with plump blue berries to shelter and sustain His littlest winged and furry creatures!  To paraphrase that old hymn, His eye is on the berry, and I know he watches me. 

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Faith and Spirituality, Nature

The Easter Promise

My husband trimmed some of our trees a couple of weeks ago.  I couldn’t bear to see the cut branches simply tossed away, so I gathered them and put them in water.  When we left last Tuesday to visit my parents in Atlanta, the branches were a stark  study in brown and gray. 

When we returned on Easter night, the branches were no longer bare.  On the lilac cuttings were delicate green leaves.  Tiny bright fuchsia flowers adorned the redbud branches.  What had appeared to be dead had bloomed with new life. 

And here it is, God’s Easter promise, as clear as the blue sky on this gloriously warm and beautiful spring day.  The cruel cross has become the tree of life.  Because of the unimaginable sacrifice of our loving God, death’s power has been defeated.  The gates of heaven are open to all who thankfully accept the priceless gift of grace.  Let us rejoice and be glad! 

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Now let the heavens be joyful!  Let earth the song begin!

Let the round world keep triumph, and all that is therein.

Let all things seen and unseen their notes in gladness blend,

for Christ the Lord hath risen, our joy that hath no end. 

–The Day of Resurrection

words: John of Damascus, trans. by John Mason Neale, 1862

music: Henry Smart, 1835

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Faith and Spirituality

Those Gray Smudges

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If you aren’t homebound today by snow, ice or frigid temperatures, you may come across folks with messy gray smudges on their foreheads.  If you’re planning to get smudged yourself, you know it’s Ash Wednesday.  Our church’s service was canceled due to extreme cold and expected snow showers on top of existing snow and ice.  So I won’t be receiving the ashes tonight. 

But I’ll be thinking about what it means.  For Christians, Ash Wednesday is a day for confronting our mortality and unworthiness.  It’s a time to thank God for loving us despite our unworthiness.  He could have left us in the ash pile, but instead, he invites us with Him to a realm of light and glory.  

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For more in-depth thoughts on Ash Wednesday, see earlier posts from 2013 and 2012. 

Community, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holiday

On Christmas Eve Especially, That Light in the Darkness

This Christmas Eve here in Virginia dawned gray and rainy, as it did along most of the east coast.  According to the weather forecast, the day will remain gray and rainy.  The heaviest rain is likely to coincide with our church’s live outdoor nativity.  There may be thunderstorms. 

At last year’s nativity, for the first time, our human participants, that motley, multi-aged crew of holy family, shepherds and kings, were joined by several four-legged friends.  These included a burro, a sheep and a goat.  Kiko found the burro quite fascinating. The burro ignored Kiko.   

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But best of all, there was Samson the camel.  Samson surveyed the scene with a majestic air of intelligence and calm.  He seemed to enjoy nuzzling his many appreciative fans.  He and his mate Delilah, who had another engagement, live on a farm in rural Virginia.  Samson’s handler appears with him in appropriately Biblical costume and beard. 

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We all hope bad weather won’t keep Samson away.  I doubt it will; he’s a sturdy sort.  Last year, he was unperturbed in the face of a frigid, persistent wind. 

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We know with absolute certainly that nothing can extinguish the true light of Christ that dawns in our dark world.  It’s the flame that glows within us, if we let it, all our lives, illuminating our paths and those of others with whom we share the road. 

I wrote about that light in the darkness several years ago in a Christmas Eve post.  It continues to express my thoughts for the day, and it can be found here.

This Christmas Eve, may we feel the warmth of the miraculous light, and may we keep it burning.   

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holiday

Christmas Spirit, or Holiday Excess?

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 Can we bring home the tree without first decorating the dog?  

In years past, ideas for Christmas-themed posts flowed from me in abundance.  I love the season, and I found so much to write about.  This year, the fountain dried up.  Seemed I’d exhausted all possibilities.  I’d written about the annual ornament-making marathons Mama and I undertook during my childhood, about how my daughter and I continued the tradition.  Wrote about my long-lived gingerbread village, the little lights, the decorative oddities (that Devil Doll).  Wrote about why we chose such ugly Christmas trees when I was very young. Wrote about decorating the dog, the tree stump.  What else was there to say? 

I thought inspiration would hit me as we decorated the house, a process that begins during the week of Thanksgiving.  The idea is that we get everything looking beautiful and will then have a chance to enjoy it:  the house aglow in the winter night, the festive greenery, red berries, all the reassuringly familiar trappings that make the season special.  It shouldn’t be a bad thing to get an early start on Christmas.  We do it in church, after all.  Our “Hanging of the Greens” takes place on the fourth Sunday before Christmas.  It begins the Advent season of the church year, when we are to prepare for the coming of Christ.  While it’s a time to remember and honor Jesus’s historical birth, Christians are also to prepare for the ever-present possibility that He will come again in final glory. 

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But at our house, decorating early also means decorating longer, and it encourages excess.  The five small artificial trees are up by early December.  At mid-month, we buy our tall live tree.  The table-top living room tree is moved into the family room.  Work then begins on the new tree. Decorating it takes several days.  We have many ornaments, and my daughter and I are sentimentally and/or compulsively attached to every single one, even those falling to pieces or unattractive.  Those will go toward the back.  We tend to make only minimal changes in our overall decorating scheme from year to year, because the atmosphere wouldn’t be as cozily homey if we did.  That means there’s very little that’s worthy of comment. 

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This year, more than most, it seemed to me that in our preoccupation with readying our home ready for Christmas, we were getting off-track, missing the point completely.  Are we preparing the house but neglecting our souls?  That true light of Christ on earth, the light that shines in the darkness–is it at risk of suffocation with all the bright shiny synthetic stuff we heap around it?  If Jesus were to appear today, would he cast an appreciative glance at our trio of alpine trees, or comment approvingly on our decision to use colored lights, instead of white, in the playroom?  Would he be touched by our thoughtful arrangement of handmade mice around a sleigh full of miniature wrapped packages?  Would he say, Well done, good and faithful servants!  These beautifully stitched and  whimsically arranged Christmas mice are a worthy commemoration of my birth!  You have prepared well, and now I am here to take you home.  I doubt it. 

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I also doubt He’d condemn us solely for going overboard on our decorating.  The Jesus I’ve come to know has no interest in turning us into puritanical, humorless scolds.  (Recall how hard he was on those self-righteous Pharisees.)  He knows we’re fairly dim creatures who tend to lose their way.  He remembers how his closest friends needed repeated explanations and still never quite understood.  He’s patient with our foolishness.  But we can’t fool him.  He’s knows when we’re blocking out his holy light.  Last Sunday our minister preached about how easy it is to crowd Christ right out of our Christmas.  There was no room for the holy family in the inn so long ago.  In much the same way, in all our holiday bustle and busyness we may leave no room for God’s love in our hearts.  Even the best of us occasionally allow the secular to tarnish and threaten to overwhelm the sacred.   

So what do we do?  How do we make sure we’re not complicit in the darkness that threatens to overcome the light (but cannot, despite our ill will and sloth)?  It’s hard to find better advice than this famous verse from Micah:                   

      Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.  (6:8b)

For me, this means not getting too comfortable in our world of  materialism and easy excess.  Have I been going overboard on gifts for those who already have way too much stuff?  Am I neglecting those who have very little?  Is there something I can do for a friend, a neighbor, or a stranger that might make a big difference?  I need to give where it matters, volunteer where I’m needed.  Every day there are chances to show love and compassion.  Am I ignoring those opportunities? If I follow through, I’ll do my part to keep the pure light of Christ alive and shining in the world.  I’ll try.  I’ll drift off the path sometimes, but with God’s help, I won’t wander too far away.          

Faith and Spirituality, Holiday

Endless is the Victory!

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Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son,
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won.
Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
kept the folded grave clothes where the body lay.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son,
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won.

Lo! Jesus meets thee, risen from the tomb;
lovingly he greets thee, scatters fear and gloom.
Let the church with gladness hymns of triumph sing,
for our Lord now liveth; death hath lost its sting.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son,
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won.

No more we doubt thee, glorious Prince of life!
Life is naught without thee; aid us in our strife.
Make us more than conquerors, through thy deathless love;
bring us safe through Jordan to thy home above.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son,
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won.

—Thine be the Glory
words: Edmond Budry, 1904; trans by R. Birch Hoyle, 1923
music: Harmonia Sacra, ca 1753; arr. from Handel, 1747

Faith and Spirituality, Holiday, Nature

Deck the Tree Stump

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This December, we hung a big wreath on the craggy maple stump in front of our house.  It seemed like an interesting, if unexpected, spot for a wreath.  And by decorating the tree, we could send a message to those who might see it as a business opportunity, as well as to those who think the stump is unsightly and wonder why we leave it standing.  The wreath says, We love this old tree trunk, and we’re letting nature take its course.

Then I thought a little more about it, and the pairing struck me as even more appropriate in its juxtaposition of life and death.  The stump is the opposite of the traditional evergreen Christmas tree.  Firs and spruces, retaining the appearance of vitality through the winter, get the privilege of being cut down, hauled into our homes, strung with lights and ornaments, and left to wither and die.  It’s tough work, being a symbol.  Our maple, though, would be in no such danger.  If intact, it would be gray-brown and leafless by now, like its neighbors in our yard.  But of course, it’s a stump, a snag, and already dead.  Yet it harbors vast, unseen colonies of creatures that go about the business of breaking down lifeless material.  It won’t be long before nature’s course is run.  The stump may not be here next year; its center is soft.  All the more reason to decorate it this year.

My husband and daughter hung the wreath one weekend afternoon, as I was napping, trying to get over a persistent cold.  When I trudged out to the road to see their handiwork, a new insight hit me.

I like to think that God works with us for good, despite ourselves, despite our selfish intentions and our vanity.  I initially wanted to decorate the tree because I thought it would look pretty, if a bit odd.  In truth, it was a way of declaring a certain pride in being different, in having the ability to see beauty where others see ugliness.

But once up, the wreath reminded me of a greater truth, of the essence of my Christian faith.  Out of death comes new, transformed life. How better to say it than in the words of John 3: 16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

And then the snow settled beautifully on the wreath and the tree, on the green and the gray, on the quick and the dead, like a blessing from above.

Faith and Spirituality, Nature

Silver Maples, Going for Gold

Just this one last tree post for the season, I promise.

A few days ago, as I was standing absent-mindedly looking out a front window, I realized, with surprise, that I was gazing at a vision of shimmering gold.  At first  I thought it was my imagination, or a shift in my attitude.   Maybe a trick of the bright light?  But it’s not.  Even when my mind-set is less than sunny, and the day is, as well, it’s apparent that the leaves of our craggy silver maples have clearly turned yellow-gold.  Until now, every fall in the thirteen years we’ve lived in our house, I’ve been a little disappointed in our maples’ lack of leaf color.  I’ve always said that they don’t really change color; their silvery green fades a bit and they fall.  Once on the ground, they crinkle up and turn  light brown.   That’s the way I remember it, at least.

It makes me wonder.  Is this autumn really so different?  It does seem that the colors have been especially vibrant.  As a friend from church put it, “God has used a gloriously bright paintbrush this year.”  She has seen many a change of season; she’s ninety-nine, and still going strong.

Or was there a golden transformation, right in my front yard, in some years past, and I completely missed it?  Because I didn’t expect it, I didn’t notice when it appeared? Is it akin to overlooking a new hair style or recently grown beard of an old friend because we’re so familiar with a face that we stop seeing it?  I don’t know.  I hope I haven’t missed this golden spectacle before.  But one thing is certain:  I will appreciate it now, while it lasts, and I won’t forget to look for it this time next year.    

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My friend is right:  God’s skills as a painter have been
everywhere in evidence this fall.