Oh the purity that hushes the sharp corners
and gracefully bends irregularity;
birthing the transformation of
the ugliest of character.

I see the usual grumbling oak across the way
and the arthritic brown walnut tree,
their arms are now fallen at their sides,
heavy heads bowed low in somber
white reverence to the sky.

12.21

Without any rhyme
without any reason
my heart lifts to light
in this bleak season.

Believer and wanderer
caught by salvation
stumbler and blunderer
into Creation

In this cold blight
where marrow is frozen
it is God's time
my heart has chosen

In paradox and story
parable and laughter
find I the glory
here in hereafter.

-L 'Engle

"I mean, what is an un-birthday present?"
"A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course."
Alice considered a little.
"I like birthday presents best," she said at last.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" cried Humpty Dumpty.
"How many days are there in a year?"
"Three hundred and sixty-five," said Alice.
"And how many birthdays have you?"

"One."

[Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]

The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. But, though it is just to condemn some Christians for these things, perhaps, after all, it is not just, though very easy, to condemn Christianity itself for them. Indeed, there are impressive indications that the positive quality of joy is in Christianity- and possibly nowhere else.

-Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

O'er snow swept oceans they climbed; the groaning ship waxing death and water. After days and nights and horrendous creaking months, the sight of land found them prostrate, sobbing. Old Bradford said of it, "...they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven." They were... home. They built and constructed, forging their new lives in the forest. Yet the tangled secrets of this new world left them bewildered.

And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? And what multitudes there might be of them, they knew not. (Bradford)

And so the winter winds blew harshly through the plank doors, snuffing out life after life. Ten were gone. Then twenty. The frozen ground was interrupted from its winter sleep again and again, and still more bodies were laid beneath the innocent snow. When the sun finally stretched out its warming hand, it wept at the sight that uneducated life in the new world had wrought; over half of the small settlement was obliterated, only three families remained intact. And then he came- very much as a surprise, nearly naked, yet speaking their tongue and eager to aid; surely an angel sent by God? He divulged the secrets of the trees and leaves, unlocking the mysteries of the seas and rivers; he performed magic with the ground yielding large harvests. Overcome with gratefulness for the stranger, one spoke of him as "a special instrument sent of God for our good, beyond our expectation." And thus, they learned the ways of the land, planting and reaping, hunting and fishing. They learned to survive the woods and the winds. Summer days came... and went. And by God's grace, they prospered.

Our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours ; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie. (Edward Winslow)

One day... I want to sit cross-legged on the floor of her shop. I will bury my hands in a soft heap of feathers and fish out burnt oranges and melon pinks. My knees will play hide and seek, lost in the flirtatious ribbons, inches and yards of old and new ribbons; and lace too: lace is very flirtatious. And then I will remember the ferns and willow branches arching over the side of the brown basket, alongside the pitchers and little baskets of grasses and twigs and lichens and mosses and skeletal leaves. And then there will be beads, buttons, and pieces of colored glass and ancient sequins and real looking diamonds and rubies, and they will find their destiny sewn on ruched fabric or glued on headdresses and hems. And from under the creaky door, the winter breezes will rush in and prowl around the room; but the warm air whooshing through the rusty heater vents will chase them away. The room will smell of vanilla candles and old things and of greenery and drapes and dust and of my hot rooibos tea sitting there on the window sill; and we will listen silently to the rain pattering on the roof and on the sidewalk. And she, with her weathered grey hair and I with my youthful red, will sit there on the floor. And we will make things.

I sat in a velvety brown chair and surveyed the scene.

Chalk board-ish signs were decorated, marking the beginning of our holiday season with their advertisements of gingery and eggnogy lattes. It smelled like cinnamon and coffee in the little shop and it was warm and cozy. I sipped my americano. You drink way too much coffee, I told myself, way too much. I opened my book and read.... two words.

I was interrupted by the intelligent looking man next to me who proceeded to start a discussion about the book I held in my hands. I was reading Orthodoxy (again), by Chesterton. He wanted to know my views on Protestantism and Greek and Roman orthodoxy and Christianity: all so similar, yet possessing some tenants so widely different. What a topic. Then he went on to tell me, in his French accent, that he has (supposedly) been a professor at three different acclaimed universities and how he is writing a book on the subject of-- orthodoxy, of all things. After that long interesting conversation, I was able to pick up my book again. These are my favorite, favorite passages taken from chapter five from my reading:

On life and this world:

I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one.

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a Christian to die to it?

The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.

On death by suicide:

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world.

...[He] insults everything on earth. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront.

Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end... In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe.

. . .

Simply beautiful.