day 25: BLUE CHRISTMAS

Narrow daylight entered my room

Shining hours were brief

Winter is over, summer is near

Are we stronger than we believe ?

I walked through halls of reputation

Among the infamous too

As the camera clings to the common thread

Beyond all vanity

Into a gaze to shoot you through

Is the kindness we count upon

Hidden in everyone ?

I stepped out in a sunlit grove

Although deep down I wished it would rain

Washing away all the sadness and tears

That will never fall so heavily again

I stood there in the salt spray air

Felt wind sweeping over my face

I ran up through the rocks to the old wooden cross

It’s a place where I can find some peace

Narrow daylight entered my room

Shining hours were brief

Winter is over, summer is near

Are we stronger than we believe ?

‘Narrow Daylight’

Diana Krall   

from‘The Girl in the Other Room’

https://youtu.be/0XMZNI1qKh8

Today is the feast of Blue Christmas.  

Here is the Advent invitation to focus through my own depression and ill health on the needs of those far worse off than myself.  

Here is the Advent occasion for me to mark time with all those who grieve, those who are in pain of every kind, to sit with the dying and those who are struggling to live, to hear those who are choked by anxiety, who are excluded by the majority, to embrace those who are isolated and bereft.  

Here is the Advent opportunity for me to begin to imagine the darkness of the one who is not at home in themselves and the one who finds no home in the world about them.

Here is the Advent moment for me to realise that these hurts and sadnesses form the real bedrock to the place where God beckons me in. 

Here is where God wants to meet me - if only I will stay there long enough to see what is really there rather than flee past the terrible sights and sounds that I imagine to be there.  

Here, in this abyss, is where I and Thou will - I am promised by Your Advent - behold each other face to face.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in 

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere 

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done 

by only me is your doing,my darling) 

                                                      i fear 

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want 

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) 

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant 

and whatever a sun will always sing is you 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows 

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud 

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows 

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) 

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

‘[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]’

e. e. cummings

with a heavy heart. Canon 7D. f5.6. 1/1000. ISO 400.