The early darkness has caught me off-guard, leaving me bewildered that the sun is disappearing behind the neighbor's homes as I climb up the stairs to our second storey and dumbstruck by the fleeting fragments of pink and orange piercing the sky. The darkness startles me with the lavishness of its blackness, its depth like a cavernous hole. A sense of disequilibrium threatens as what seems to be 8:30 in the evening is really only 5:00. Then I catch sight of them from our front windows, the dangling white lights so meticulously strung by my husband last weekend. Artificial lights, mass produced and purchased at Menards, yet they offer me solace, these beaming lights, their brightness permeating the darkness, helping in some inexplicable way to quiet the cacophony of inner voices that crowd out silence, that squashes out prayer. I leave the warmth of our home, the smells of a pumpkin scented candle mingled with a curried lentil soup dissipating into the briskness of the late November air. Momentarily I stand in the silence of the night, the business of all creatures quelled by the shift in the seasons, and gaze at our home. It is ablaze with light shining out into the darkness, the pressed autumn leaves still taped to our windows are vibrant and beautiful, the scrawl of the Emily Dickinson poem written on the wax paper enveloping the leaves illegible but present. And then I am back inside, the children are squealing and racing in circles through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. There are desperate pleas for their father to wrestle with them, to tickle them, especially under their arm pits, and peals of delight when he obliges. I am touched by their wonder, their voracious energy, their innocence, and offer up a plea that my own human limitations and sins will not spoil their sense of awe, their sense of the divine everywhere present. Already we have entered the season of preparation, a time of joyful solemnity, as we are asked again to embark upon a journey that will lead us to an encounter with the incarnate Christ. Along the way, there will be feasts rich with traditions - shoes to be left out for St. Nicholas with the expectation of gifts and chocolate gold coins (not that we are counting down the days, but there are five to be exact), a white and red dress hidden in my closet to be worn by our daughter on St. Lucia day, and the ingredients for Swedish ginger cookies served for this feast already stashed in our pantry. Tomorrow we will light the first candle of Advent and ask the question, "Who is like God?" finding the answer not among the noblest of warriors or the most devout of priests, reaching beyond St. Nicholas, St. Herman of Alaska, and St. Lucia, to the nativity of a helpless child, the God-Man, nourished at his Mother's breast, lying in a cattle stall.
The Ponds
Mary Oliver
Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe
their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them—
the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch
only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?
I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided—
and that one wears an orange blight—
and this one is a glossy cheek
half nibbled away—
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing -
that the light is everything - that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.
Postscript: Yes, my children insist upon dressing like it is summer and like to mix patterns. I applaud them for showing early signs of bucking the system. Incidentally that fuzzy thing Elliot is wearing is my hat: I have always wanted to be Russian. And yes, Russell is holding yarn and pretending it is a baby and did request I take his picture. Also, it was he that prematurely placed every shoe we own out for St. Nicholas, and it most certainly took much coaxing to convince him to put the shoes away. And yes, Thomas has requested that the box he promised to St. Nicholas in his note contain peanut butter blossom cookies. Hershey kisses were purchased today.
