Beauty abounds. In his meditation on today’s #AdventWord, Bro. James Koester of the Society of St. John the Evangelist speaks of the “dream of God” as a place where “the fruits of the kingdom flourish.” He calls on us to be producers of “sweet fruits of the kingdom” in our work, our love, our patience, kindness, generosity and so forth. The bits and moments of beauty everywhere in creation are also sweet fruits of the kingdom. They are God’s kisses or pats on the back or hand gently steadying us in a difficult time. They enable us to be producers…

Merry Christmas, everyone! May your world be bathed in holy light this First Day of Christmas and always.

Come, come, whoever you are.Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.It doesn’t matter.Ours is not a caravan of despair.Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.Come, yet again, come, come.–Rumi

The hymn, “Mary, did you know?” has come in for lots of criticism of late. One meme I saw on Facebook accused it of being a “mansplaining” of what Mary obviously already knew because an angel had told her. Well, ok. Far be it from me to contest that patriarchy infiltrates Christianity today! But, really, I have also read the words Gabriel spoke to her, and if she understood everything, if she really got the whole story from Gabriel’s words, why did she have to ponder those words? And why did she ponder again several years later when Jesus stayed…