.
“And
if we could show the world today that being committed to Christ is no tame, humdrum, sheltered monotony, but the most fascinating
and exciting adventure the human spirit can ever know---“ joy unspeakable and full of glory” –the thousands
of strong and stalwart lives that have been holding back from Christ and looking askance at the Church and standing outside
the Kingdom would come crowding in to His allegiance; and there might be such a revival as the world has not witnessed since
the Pentecost.”
James Stewart, The Magnetism of the Unseen
A song of ascents fills my thoughts and invades
my soul as I reminisce about the unique journey and seasons of my life, oh most surely as Advent arrives this eventful year. Seemingly 2008 was on fast forward and abbreviated by heaven’s clock. But of
course, no such thing was true because the seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months have remained equal down the centuries,
fixed and governed with precision since Genesis chapter one, Alas the rush of
time, is nothing more than having my calendar too crowded with activities in these upper years. I resolve to slow my dervish when the calendar turns.
Sparrows, titmice, and finches were the first visitors to my copper-roofed
feeder station this season. When two of the five pine trees on my front lawn
died, I engaged Robert the tree man to take them all down, there being enough remaining oaks, maples, tulip poplars, and dogwoods
as habitat for the ubiquitous squirrels that no doubt will miss their piney playground.
As another
Christmas draws near, this is my petition: Holy Spirit, Thou art welcome in this
place; Holy Spirit, Thou art welcome in this space; Omnipotent Master of glory
and grace, Thou art welcome here in my place…. and for the wider world and even greater realm of the Kingdom into which
I was reborn, joint heir with the tiny Babe of Bethlehem who visited this planet twenty one centuries ago.
.
From A
Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens:
Scrooge was better than his word.
He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend,
as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good
old world….. He had no further intercourse with Spirits…; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep
Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim
observed, God Bless Us, Every One!