Quiet

 It's December 6. In a eye's blink, 2021 will be past. Advent and Christmas, with all their beauty and wonder, will be gone.

So I want to go slowly. As Robert Frost says in "October," -- "Slow! Slow!" He wishes for autumn leaves to fall only one at a time. At that rate, autumn would take all year long!

This past week I met with a dear friend at church, and we did "the greening of the church" for the first time ever. We started small, and we wore out quickly. We do the poinsettias every year, but the green swags of cedar, holly, and magnolia are a new thing.

There are cedar swags on the windows that you can't see here.

Each week I tell myself I'm going to stay HOME and get things done, work in the yard (so much tidying up to do!), and stay happily in my studio. But every day, something comes up -- a grocery run, errands, recycling, doctor visits -- and before you know it the week is gone.

We put up the Christmas tree. Our daughter's new kitten Leo loves to climb in the tree (of course), so he will be consigned to her room quite a bit this month. We're watching Christmas movies in the evening and drinking eggnog and enjoying the twinkling lights in the living room.

The house it quiet now. It's early Monday morning and I have the whole week stretched out before me. I wonder what I'll get done?

I have three scarves to weave, one knitted scarf to finish. Painting, of course -- I'm working on North Carolina's lighthouses. 

Pondering Advent, I read a friend's post about the carol, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." We do plead with the Savior to come and ransom us. Truly we "mourn in lonely exile here."  I once wrote a song about what the world might have been like, if Jesus had never come. A fallen, broken, dark world where no savior, no rescue, ever arrives. How thankful I am for His birth at Christmas! His love pierces the world's darkness, consigning it to the corners. His love pours a balm of healing on all our brokenness. I cannot imagine living without the hope He gives me, of peace both here and after I die. These are my thoughts during Advent, that each year we wait in desperate hope for help in the hovel of our lives. He always comes.