Reflections for

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Dec 21, 2014

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1:46b-55 or Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

Poetry

For shadowment: Villanelle for the solstice

Dec 06, 2012 by Angela Alaimo O'Donnell

Here, here in the crook of the year,
the crux and fix and flux of the year
light falls long across and dear.

Here in the ruck and dreck of the year
We glean and gather grace and gear,
here, here in the crook of the year.

Here is the neckbone of the year,
its knuckle sharp, its blade sheer,
where light falls long across and dear.

Hear the matins of the year,
the chant of praise and marrow fear,
here, here in the crook of the year.

Cheer the vespers of the year,
the prayers that rise from tongue to ear
as light falls long across and dear.

Clear your mind as night draws near.
Stead your heart and shed no tear.
Here, here in the crook of the year
where light falls long across and dear.

Media

Once Upon a Time; Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman

Sep 12, 2012 reviewed by Beth Felker Jones

Several current tales of Snow White nod at feminist critique—while leaving the old paradigms for female power and beauty intact.

Poetry

Mary considers her situation

Mar 12, 2012 by Luci Shaw

What next, she wonders,
with the angel disappearing, and her room
suddenly gone dark.

The loneliness of her news
possesses her. She ponders
how to tell her mother.

Still, the secret at her heart burns like
a sun rising. How to hold it in—
that which cannot be contained.

She nestles into herself, half-convinced
it was some kind of good dream,
she its visionary.

But then, part dazzled, part prescient—
she hugs her body, a pod with a seed
that will split her.

From the CCblogs Network

Reading the Magnificat during Lent

Mar 01, 2012 by Julie Clawson

I’m taking a class on the Gospel of Luke this semester, and one of my assignments is to engage in an ongoing spiritual practice related to that particular Gospel. So for the entire semester I am reading the Magnificat daily. It’s a passage that I’ve been drawn to in recent years, but it has been particularly illuminating to be dwelling on it during Lent this year, since it is typically confined to the Advent season. Somehow the triumphal language of the justice that God has already accomplished fits with the modern treatment of Advent as a celebratory season. But Lent is a season of penance, which puts an entirely different spin on the text.

On Art

The Annunciation

Dec 21, 2011 reviewed by Lil Copan

When I started the work,” writes video artist/photographer Eija-Liisa Ahtila, “the aim was to do a remake of the annunciation paintings with moving images to see what this powerful image in our culture would turn out to be and what it would mean in present-day Western society.” The result, The Annunciation, is a three-channel multimedia installation exhibited at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York. A mixture of stills of familiar paintings of the annunciation and acted scenes—with angels, a patron, donkeys, Mary, cultural Christmas snapshots and layers of angel wings—creates a layered narrative. In the 33-minute installation, Ahtila’s work runs through cultural allusions and histories, moving in and through the natural and supernatural.

—Lil Copan

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Revised Common Lectionary © 1992 the Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.