We have done it again! Just a couple of weeks ago, we found out a friend's rabbit had given birth. We considered adding a sweet bunny to our farm, but decided to say no to this one because, well, we have a lot going on. But then my youngest daughter, Haven, spoke up. She really…
I awakened to a muted dawn on this New Year's Day. It rained all night while the winds caused this big house to creak and moan. We have had a crazy December warm spell, but because of the front coming through, I expected it to be cool, so I donned sweats and a sweatshirt to…
"What will come of him, This child who holds my hand in a crowd? The prophets foretold much suffering. Is it wrong that I long to pray for you to change your mind?"
"He opens up the skies with blazing light, declaring He has come and we have a choice."
I have found, when I allow myself to be known and find that friend who is willing to enter into the darkness with me, my own strength is renewed. Impartation is a beautiful side-effect of intimacy. It is something that cannot take place over Zoom or FaceTime. Impartation is the Holy Spirit filling the physical space between us as our eyes meet and our hands touch over shared bread and wine, acting as a conduit passing from person to person. Strength chasing away weakness. Hope dispelling grief. Light pushing back the darkness. It is what happened when baby John leapt in his mother's womb and Mary heard words that no other person had been able to say to her up until that moment..."Blessed are you among women..."
In the quiet I can almost hear the angel interrupting the world. Do you not know? Have you not heard? He is coming, he has come, he is here. And I feel him now, that deep and abiding peace he brings. Though so much demands my attention, in this moment my frantic heart slows and I settle in to the big comfy chair as I read of the God who intervened. Out of that long-dead stump that had been cut down and left to rot, a shoot of life grew and grows. A shoot that will be an arrow piercing the heart of the accuser, pushing back against hell’s darkness to bring at last the light of salvation.
I wrote this poem in 2018, imagining the moment when Mary, the mother of Christ, arrived and baby John leapt for joy in his mother's belly. I wrote it long before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19. The world was already in pain, though, grieving death and injustice on the streets and in the courts...
We knew Rosa was pregnant, and estimated she would deliver around the end of October based on when we first noticed her growing belly. We were a little off 🙂 On the morning of October 13, I stepped out of my back door to feed the animals and stumbled upon this sweet scene. To my…
Time feels like someone put their foot on the accelerator and just keeps pressing down, speeding things up, causing the scenery to blur. I feel my age, not so much physically but in how the world feels foreign. Aliens and strangers, the Bible tells me. We are all aliens and strangers.
I ventured out for a walk early this morning, just before the sun peeked over the horizon. When I opened the front door, it was still almost completely dark and the fog greeted me, quite literally, by glowing in the lights flanking the front porch and clinging to my face. I could see the droplets…
Arundelle Green 