Joy: Twelfth Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

Today’s joys included two sights that seemed just right for the last day of Christmas and the day before Epiphany.

At Christmas we talk about the true light coming into the world, and at Epiphany we talk about that light being manifested to the whole world. There have been several striking sunrises and sunsets during these twelve days of Christmas, and this morning’s sunrise seemed to be all about the light:

Right before Christmas I made a batch of date-nut cookies, cutting them into star shapes. When I took one of the sheets of cookies out of the oven, three of them fell onto the floor. While they were still warm, I poked holes in them to hang them by string for the birds and squirrels. The two stars that had been hanging from a birdfeeder disappeared, though I never saw who had eaten them or if they had simply fallen. Late this morning, though, a squirrel climbed up a trellis where I’d hung the third star and carefully removed it. Then, carrying it in his mouth, he ran up into a tree for a Twelfth Night feast.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.

Joy: Eleventh Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

The image of living water is familiar to us from Scripture. There is something about a flowing stream of water that we connect with life and abundance. In the darkest part of the winter, when parts of rivers, streams, and lakes are covered with ice, the sight of water flowing evokes a feeling of joy.

Some of these streams and rivers would be completely frozen most Januaries. An interesting thing we humans do is to welcome abnormally warmer weather this time of year but bemoan it in the summer. Seeing partially frozen streams on sunny days with temperatures around 30 degrees is familiar to us, even if we might more usually see this a few weeks later. It doesn't seem as “abnormal” to us as similarly unseasonably warm weather trends seem in July or August, when the heat hits a less familiar range. So even when we know in a more abstract way that our warmer, later winter may ultimately not be a cause of joy, the sight of running water in January feels like a sign of life and hope to us. It evokes deep-rooted images and archetypes formed when the climate was more stable. And it remains true in this part of the country that the sight of a gently flowing stream is always a gift.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.

Joy: Tenth Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

The prayer garden at St. Stephen’s hasn’t been used since the cold weather came in. The fountain is drained and covered for winter, and snow has blown in and covered the space.

More accurately, though, we might say that humans haven’t used the prayer garden since the cold weather came in. Obviously there’s been a visitor who came in through  or over the gate, walked the length of the courtyard, and then left. It may have been a cat sheltering in the corner from chilly winds, looking for something to eat, or simply sensing that this was a safe place. There’s joy in knowing that we are not alone, and that other creatures share this space that we have set aside to help bring us closer to God.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.

Joy: Ninth Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

Joy today came in the form of signs of life on a wintry January day: occasional bird songs, tracks of rabbits and birds in the snow, and a squirrel digging through the snow to get to food buried this fall.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.

Joy: Eighth Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

The sky this evening was lovely. Clear skies and cold temperatures brought beautiful sunrises and sunsets to many Nebraskans today.

The joy of seeing this evening sky was deepened by the recollection of the words of the Phos hilaron that help articulate the spiritual experience of seeing such a sky:

O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!
Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 118)

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.

Joy: Seventh Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

While parts of Nebraska had new snowfall today, in Omaha where we spent the day it was simply cloudy and cold. It was one of those “in the bleak midwinter” sorts of days: “Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone”.

But walking by snow-covered flower beds that I know are planted with spring flower bulbs brought joy into the day, the joy of anticipation. Just as we look with confidence for the light to appear in the darkness, we know that new growth will start appearing in a few weeks. Meanwhile, there are garden seeds to order and start indoors and memories of last year’s gardens to shorten the remaining weeks of winter.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.

Joy: Sixth Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

Today we drove through part of eastern Nebraska and into Omaha. The land changed along the way from fairly flat fields to hills, and then on through the Platte and Elkhorn river valleys with some wooded areas near the rivers, and then into the suburbs and center of Omaha. Snow covered it all.

From the road, the rows of corn stubble stand out against the snow. The clearly distinguishable rows recede into a common point, bringing some geometrical elegance to the landscape. Coupled with seeing the fields lying under snow cover, providing at least some moisture to the dry soil, the fields bring quiet joy.

Driving by wooded areas brings a different sort of joy to me. Since my childhood in northeast Ohio, I’ve loved seeing the woods in winter, so even small patches of woods seen from the road evoke a special feeling of joy and gratitude for the earth’s gifts.

A key to experiencing joy is openness to finding joy both in beloved familiar places and in places that seem very different or even strange. Straight rows of corn stubble and the tangled thickets in the woods are very different, but there’s joy to be seen and experienced in both. Learning to let go of something old in order to find joy in something new is essential to our spiritual growth, and may well be a piece of our spiritual preparation for the challenges we face now and in the future as our biosphere changes in significant ways.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.