Daily Signet

But ignorance and its attendant pain
are also our greatest gifts,
for where we have answers, we cannot create.
Life without closure and the Star always closer is hope. 

From the Mystery of Birth and Rebirth High Service

On This Day…

Emily Dickinson born 1830 in Amhurst, Massachusetts: beloved poet famous for her I’m Nobody, Who Are You, and Hope Is A Thing With Feathers. Died 5-15-1886
Quotes: “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
“Forever is composed of nows.”
“Saying nothing…sometimes says the most.”

Nelly Sachs born 1891 in Schonesberg, Germany: Jewish poet and playwright whose experiences with the Nazi regime during World War II made her a poignant spokeswoman for grief and the yearnings of her people in such works as Eclipse of the Stars, No One Knows Where I go and O The Chimneys.  Died 5-12-70
Quotes: “Bewitched is half of everything.” “We breathed the air of freedom without knowing the language or any person.” “World, they have taken the small children like butterflies and thrown them, beating their wings, into the fire.”

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.”

Daily Signet

At this time of year, we speak of angels. It seems to me that any discussion of angels should never exude certainty, but always gratitude.  Angels are the kind of thing to be held in one’s heart constantly—argued over, never.  These ministers of the soul’s aspirations, of divine purpose wherever it is being created, represent the essence of belief as beloving, not as 
bethinking. To talk about angels is to speak of wings and fire and wind and power and love. To talk of angels is to dream and imagine; they are indeed the messengers of the very essence of the divine creative nature—and we, when in their presence, called to “Be not afraid.” 

Teri Martin

Birmingham Museums Trust

On This Day…

Shinto National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

St. Ambrose of Milan: 4C lawyer in Rome, appointed Governor of Milan, and then, though an un-baptized, marginal Christian, chosen as Bishop of Milan and later Doctor of the Church

Willa Cather born 1873 in Gore, Virginia: novelist famed for her stories of frontier life on the great plains; Oh Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark and My Antonia. Died 4-24-1947
Quotes: “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”
“Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can happen to one again.”
“There are some things you learn best in calm and some in storm.”

Daily Signet

The power of silence is critical at this time of Advent. Dale Allison, a New Testament scholar, says: “Silence is not nothing. It is instead the divine liturgy leading to communion with God, the mute awe and reverence required by an encounter with the holy.” In Luminous Dusk, Allison tells of a legend from an old apocryphal gospel describing the moment when the Virgin Mary conceived:  

...a great silence descended with a great fear. For even the winds stopped, they made no breezes. There was no motion of tree leaves, nor sound of water. The streams did not flow, there was no motion of the sea. All things in the ocean were silent, and no human voice was heard.... Time almost stopped its measure. All, overwhelmed with great fear, kept silent.

As Dale Allison concludes from this legend, it would seem that just as “with the advent of God in the world, so too with the advent of God in our lives: silence is the only appropriate greeting.”

Alexis Drabek                                                                                                       

On This Day…

Christian St. Nicholas Day: St. Nicholas, 3C Bishop of Myra in France: known for his zeal and his healings, and as the basis of the modern Santa Claus

Ira Gershwin born 1896 in New York City: lyricist who wrote the words for his brother George’s songs, including those for several popular Broadway shows including; I Got Rhythm, Someone to Watch Over Me, Isn’t it Romantic and the great classic, Porgy and Bess. Died 8-17-1983
Quotes: “Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair.” “Nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you try.” 

Daily Signet

I confess—I love Advent calendars. While daytimers systematically divide the year, months, and days into boxes of time, Advent calendars hide each day’s “window of surprise” within an endless variety of themes and scenes. Boxed time seems to demand an accounting for time spent; Advent windows remind you of the hidden potentia and wonder awaiting in each new day. More a palette for the human imagination than a ledger sheet of time, the Advent window offers a prompt for the human soul to absorb and en-joy what the day will bring: the comings and goings of colors and vestments and scents and tastes and moods of the season.  

Advent calendars remind you that there’s more to a day than 15 minute intervals; and that not all days are created equal. Some days gather up more than a 24-hour share of time, filled as they are with all the excitement of preparations as you head for sacred moments around a tree, or lighting candles at an altar, or joining with family and friends around a table laden with favorite foods. Then, there are windows that open up to scenes that remind you to relax the gathering stitch of time in quiet and patient moments of reflection as you await the birth of a child in a manger. 

Every year I’m tempted to hide all my daytimers and pull out all the Advent calendars I can find—and to count my days with these windows of surprise that open up into kairos, allowing that which is timeless, all believed and all beloved, to pour into and fill all my chronos days.                                                                                                                                               

Teri Martin

On This Day…

St. Barbara: 4C virgin who refused her father’s order that she marry, and retreated into a tower. Father had her tortured, then took her himself up into the mountains where he killed her and burned her body

Rainer Maria Rilke born 12-4-1875 in Prague, Czechoslovakia: poet and novelist known for his Letters to A Young Poet, the Duino Elegies, and Sonnets to Orpheus. Died 12-29-1926
Quotes: “Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.”
“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it: blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches, for the Creator, there is no poverty.”
“A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.”