Lights and sounds, all around

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Lights and sounds, all around

I thought I was thinking,

but it was actually prayer.

I thought I was stewing in my feelings,

but it was actually prayer.

I thought I was dreaming,

but it was actually prayer.

I thought I was creating,

but it was actually prayer.

I thought I was reading,

but it was actually prayer.

I thought I was listening,

but it was actually prayer.

I thought I was loving,

but it was actually prayer.

because God permeates all of existence.           

– Clarence Heller

Everywhere I went I found sights and sounds of Christmas. At cardiac rehab the therapists talked about their trips – to Toronto, to San Antonio, to the other side of town, but always to be with their families, to eat the food of Christmas, listen to the music of Christmas, find their way back to the manger and the Christ Child.

The Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and He shall name him Emmanuel.

In Urbana the skies were dark with cold, full of snow and rain, wind blowing all of it across the whitening, slowly freezing ground. This, just two-ish days after I left town under a 50 degree, quiet, sunny sky.

Here in Austin the skies were still sunny, bright blue, still air, and the temperature got up to around 70 degrees. Maybe 71. At our apartment Scott the maintenance guru painted the concrete white around the full blue swimming pool.

The moon’s crescent is waxing, growing an inch or two each night, aiming toward a full moon on the day after Christmas. Miles and Jasper get to have a sleepover with us on the 28^th, the first day of predicted sunny warm air after a rainy Christmas holiday. The moon will be a bit off full and the night walk we always take around the apartment complex when they visit might just be a true joy.

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?

Clarence Heller says everything I do is prayer: thinking, feeling, dreaming. Creating, reading, listening and loving. “It is actually prayer,” he says. God is everywhere and in everything. All our Christmas celebration, too, is prayer. The planning Andi does, and shares with us, our several gatherings during the week, our Christmas light viewing trips to ooh and aah! our  crafts and games, all of it is prayer.

We left Andi’s house after wrestling with Jasper and Miles who were eating too much chocolate, and wandered our neighborhood looking for the brightly lit houses around the corner, the ones with far too many inflatables last year, and more, we thought for sure, again in 2023. Our wandering took us round and round to nowhere, but I looked back at the location of pictures from last year and found the intersection, just a couple blocks away from where we were about to give up.

Yes, the yards were too full. There wasn’t room for another one, not one more. The Holy Family lit up bright white beneath two kissing dinosaurs. And more of course, much more.

And yes, I stopped in the middle of the dark intersection to get just one more pic, and cars came up on both sides, driving too fast, me stopped in a completely unpredictable place … somehow we got out of there, everyone went on their way, and in just a minute more we headed home.

And all of it is prayer.

(Isaiah 7, Psalm 24, Luke 1)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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