My spirit rejoices in God
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. He has looked upon his lowly servant, and from this day all generations will call me blessed. – From Luke 1
Michigan poet Jane Kenyon wrote from an orthodox church in Serbia:
On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments …
One of these days soon and very soon, we plan to visit St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Urbana. We are following the music. Our friend Villy spends summers with her parents, husband and kids near Sofia in Bulgaria. They attend the local orthodox church. Often the priest explains what is happening in the service. But when he tries to talk about the singing, he simply says, “We sing with the angels.”
Villy said she has sometimes wept through the whole service. Surely that means the angels must be singing too. Or perhaps weeping. We must not count that out.
Jane Kenyon continues with her poem,
“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?”
Can we not learn from our mistakes? Will someday we welcome the stranger as our sister or our brother? Will there come a time when we can touch each other and feel loved rather than afraid? We are all lowly servants, and when God shows us how to live that way, well yes, then the generations will call us blessed. We learn from Mother Mary:
God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.
* * *
Lord, I think of Mary carrying her baby, sometimes alone but now held and loved and listened to by Joseph as she bounces atop a burro along the rocky track toward Bethlehem. Already there are many stories for her to tell. There will be more. She will keep them all. Let us begin to approach her baby, Lord, and his parents, and our God. Let us come close right now, and sing.
Jane Kenyon, “Mosaic of the Nativity, Serbia, 1993,” included as entry for December 10, in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, 2001, Plough Publishing House
http://www.davesandel.net/category/advent-and-christmas-devotions-2018/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archive.php?year=2018
