Red Star Prayers

“Red Stars” Phone Photos DS

On a walk this week, I finally stopped to take a photo of a bare tree decorated with huge red Christmas stars. I had admired them since the tree was decorated. As happens, our daily experiences are mashups of life, faith and culture. 

I came across the biblical Elizabeth and Zechariah in my morning prayer and reading practice. They had prayed for a child for their entire marriage. Now they were old. They lived a good, satisfying, and holy life but had given up on their prayer for a child long ago. Book of Luke

Then I read a commentary:

“And when they least expect it, God shows up. The angel Gabriel is sent with the good news. God had heard their prayers. God had heard their prayers all along. And God was answering. Not only would they have a child, their child would be the forerunner of the Messiah!”  Soo-Inn Tan, Director of Graceworks, Singapore

Over Tim Hortons coffee in a lime green mug and raising my eyes from the book, I look over at the colourful hanging Christmas cards in the window. I contemplate my own long time prayers. 

These prayers seem old, unanswerable, too big and all-encompassing. But are they? In boldness I blurt out my main want: deliver! So is that not what Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, came for? Do we not celebrate again his coming this year even in a pandemic? Perhaps it is this very time of the deferred hope of the pandemic ending making the heart sick, that God will choose to answer our big, all-encompassing prayers. What is faith anyway if it is not a belief in a God who loves us and will not give us a stone when we ask for what we need?

As life came from God, life can be given back to God for not only safe-keeping but for flourishing; the languishing plant is returned to the gardener for care. I pray for this, a Red Star gift from the Giver of all life, a Christmas miracle in the family. What do we have to lose by looking with hope?

A Plan of Hope

“Christmas Trees at Dundarave Beach” Phone Photo DS

Yesterday, I lost it. I was not unkind but merely complained more than usual and to a person who was working to solve an issue with me. We have stumbled along for months complicating the situation. We reassured each other that the solution would come soon and left each other to recover equilibrium.

I became pensive. I noticed that my patience is wearing thin. In these long days of unimagined bad news, asking, how long will the virus last, we discover that it may continue for a long time, very long. Concurrent with this we in B.C. have had deaths in a heat dome; an unheard of term. Long summer fires and now devastating floods, not just to homes, but to wiping out of towns, farms and critical highway infrastructure of supply chains of food and fuel; the mainstays of our existence. Yet, arising out of this, we see news of armies of volunteers assisting humans and livestock to safety even before the Canadian Armed Forces is called into the state of emergency. Our minds, like yo-yos, go back and forth, reeling with each day’s COVID numbers rising again and looters coming to the devastated towns. Also formal apologies from representatives for caught abusers become a common occurrence as people rise up in a critical mass of protest to overwhelm the news; bleeding further our dry hearts.

As it happens, I am drawn to two readings this week. One is an unread book left over from a culture course I audited at Regent College over Zoom two summers ago. (I seem to need some commiseration.) The other is an ancient book from a long ago time of unimagined tragedy. As always, we have a choice to go forward in faith or to sink into despair. These are days of nightmares and of visions and dreams of love to the rescue. Emmanuel, God is with us.

Two authors comment on the times:

“Some people … are slow to react; some forgetful, some confused; some move about muttering with the wary look of people in institutional corridors. I pushed my cart along the isle.” 

Don Delillo, White Noise, 1984.

“The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom … Strengthen feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, be strong and do not fear; your God will come … And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness … Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” 

Book of Isaiah, 8^th century BCE.

A Garden Meditation from the Summer

“Geraniums on the Patio” DS

What strikes me as significant this morning is the breeze flowing through the garden.  The house, by contrast, is still inside.  Although I find myself sneezing a couple of times, the air movement feels refreshing.  The garden moves.  It is alive.  The violas too, flutter.

Birds are chirping and tweeting.  Bees buzz.  Again, I find myself taking deep breaths.  I too am alive.  I am moving.  My life does not stand still.  New opportunities greet me with my morning prayers.  The wind blows, the Spirit moves in rhythms of work and rest.  The garden contemplation times attune me to this, even in a pandemic.

Kindling the Fire

The reading echoes my experience on this cold rainy day in the pandemic. The third atmospheric river will arrive this afternoon. My first task is to prepare a box for mailing before a Zoom class at 10:00am. I light the fireplace, then eat some Raisin Bran, drink some Folger’s. My eyes land on the tablet page:

Ancient Celtic Prayer – Kindling the Fire

This morning, as I kindle the fire upon my hearth, I pray that the flame of God’s love may burn in my heart, and the hearts of all I meet today.

I pray that no envy and malice, no hatred or fear, may smother the flame.

I pray that indifference and apathy. Contempt and pride, may not pour like cold water on the fire.

Instead, may the spark of God’s love light the love in my heart, 

That it may burn brightly through the day.

And may I warm those that are lonely, whose hearts are cold and lifeless,

So that all may know the comfort of God’s love.

“Morning Fire” Phone photo DS