Daily Signet

When I set aside what I think I know and simply look around me with eyes of wonder, I see that the human being can live through the most heartbreaking of circumstances and respond creatively to the most unreasonable of conditions. When I set aside what I think is possible or impossible, I see that men and women are capable of sustaining hope and creating beauty “through it all”—no matter what “all” is. In Christuman, we believe that the human has been created in the creative image of a Creator God. This God is often said to be singular in the ability to create ex nihilo–out of nothing.  But when I look, I see evidence that the human can also create almost out of nothing, or at least very little—can find moments of beauty, joys, hopes, and the dignity of the human spirit—even in the lowliest of circumstances and quite often without apparent cause or certainly any promise of effect.

No wonder that we look to the Star of Bethlehem year after year and to the wonder of a star-marked baby born in a manger amidst the taxing day-to-day activities of life. In this season of the celebration of the Mystery of Birth and Rebirth may we be re-minded by what we see when we look with virginal eyes of wonder. During this season, may our seeing confirm the paradox of the glorious impossibility that “through it all” we have been given all we need to create, even when it seems, ex nihilo.  In this season, may we be blessed with the death of what we think we know is possible and impossible, reasonable and irrational, so we may experience the beauty of the birth of the Christ child within the empty fullness of our day-to-day. 

Teri Martin

On This Day…

Joel Chandler Harris born 1848 in Eatonton, Georgia: journalist, fiction writer and folklorist remembered for his stories about Bre’r Rabbit and his gang.  Died 7-3-1908
Quotes: “I am in the prime of my senility.”
“Watch out when you’re getting all you want. Fattening hogs ain’t in luck.”