a journey through the seasons of nature & the Christian year
Today I’m the guest on the Constant Wonder podcast. I’m sharing my thoughts on the Lights of Advent, as they relate to the Four Kingdoms (Mineral, Plant, Animal, and Human), and how I use the kingdoms of nature to create our Advent season table each year. If you love nature, you’ll want to check out the entire Constant Wonder Advent series.
Click on the image to listen to the episode.
Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray
With trees and trail of mosses, wringing-wet;
Beds of the black pitchpine in dead leaves set
Whose wasted red has wasted to white away;
Why hold ye so my heart, nor dimly let
Through your deep leaves the light of yesterday . . .
Is it that in your darkness, shut from strife,
The bread of tears becomes the bread of life?
—from Sonnets, First Series (Sonnet VI) by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
Northern white-cedar, eastern hemlock, soft white pine . . . I gather them in the quiet afternoon hours of the first Sunday in Advent. In early December the sun rests low in the sky, mostly hidden behind the leaves and needles of the conifers that half-ring our yard. Not one of these trees belongs to me—they sit just outside what I might call my own—but I do not think these stolid natives of the eastern lands much mind the quick snips of my shears, or my pilfering just a few sprigs from their still-lush beauty. The trees are who they have always been and I do what we have always done, as the wheel of the year turns and the darkness descends. The evergreens bear on, and we fragile creatures of the earth gather their boughs and wait for the Light.
The Homely Hours is featuring a guest post I wrote for their Book of Common Prayer in Daily Life series. Click on the image below to read my thoughts (link is also at the bottom of this post).
My dad has always been great at off-the-cuff prayers. No matter what the occasion—Easter dinner or just a family meal—he can pull together a prayer on the spot that is both authentic and meaningful. I am not blessed with my dad’s talent for spontaneous prayer, but I can still offer up words of praise or petitions for intercession, thanks to the Book of Common Prayer. . .
Read more via The Homely Hours.
