Advent Calendar Day 28: Haphazard by Starlight

BC:AD - U.A. Fanthorpe

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.
This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.
This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.
And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

Advent Calendar Day 27: Love & Light

Advent Calendar Day 26: Journey of the Magi

 

Journey of the Magi - TS Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Advent Calendar Day 25: Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice ~ the day the light comes back. 

 

December 21 - Ted Kooser

Perfectly still this solstice morning, 
in bone-cracking cold. Nothing moving,
or so one might think, but as I walk the road,
the wind held in the heart of every tree
flows to the end of each twig and forms a bud. 

Advent Calendar Day 24: Expect Miracles

     

Not the Millennium - UA Fanthorpe  

Wise Men are busy being computer literate.
There should be a law against confusing
Religion with mathematics.
There was a baby. Born where?
And when? The sources mention
Massacres, prophecies, stars;
They tell a good story, but they don’t agree.
So we celebrate at the wrong midnight.
Does it matter? Only (dull) science expects
An accurate audit. The economy of heaven
Looks for fiestas and fireworks every day,
Every day.
Be realistic, says heaven:
Expect a miracle.

Advent Calendar Day 23: Christmas Cards

"The custom (giving Christmas cards) is a most striking one - so long as we have sufficient imagination to remember vividly that we are all in the same boat - I mean, on the same planet, and clinging desperately to the flying ball, and dependent for daily happiness on one another's good will! A Christmas card sent by one human being to another human being is more than a piece of coloured stationary  sent by one log of wood to another log of wood: it is an inspiring and reassuring message of high value."  

~ from Arnold Bennett 'The Feast of St Friend'

Christmas Mail - Ted Kooser 

Cards in each mailbox,

angel, manger, star and lamb,

as the rural carrier,

driving the snowy roads,

hears from her bundles

the plaintive bleating of sheep,

the shuffle of sandals,

the clopping of camels.

At stop after stop,

she opens the little tin door

and places deep in the shadows

the shepherds and wise men,

the donkeys lank and weary,

the cow who chews and muses.

And from her Styrofoam cup,

white as a star and perched

on the dashboard, leading her

ever into the distance,

there is a hint of hazelnut,

and then a touch of myrrh.

Christmas Envelopes - UA Fanthorpe
Monks are at it again, quaffing, carousing;
And stage-coaches, cantering straight out of Merrie England,
In a flurry of whips and fetlocks, sacks and Santas.
  Raphael has been roped in, and Botticelli;
Experts predict a vintage year for Virgins.
From the theologically challenged, Richmond Bridge,
Giverny, a lugger by moonlight, doves.  Ours
Costs less than these in money, more in time;
Like them, is hopelessly irrelevant
But brings, like them, the essential message

love.

Advent Calendar Day 22: The Most Tremendous Tale

 

from Christmas - John Betjeman

And is it true? and is it true?
The most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant.

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.

 

Advent Calendar Day 21: The Spirit of Santa

 

This famous 1897 reply to an 8 year old girl from the New York Sun is one of the most famous editorials of all time, as well as a powerful testament to the the real magic and spirit of Christmas:

 

Advent Calenar Day 20: The Coming of Light

The Coming of Light - Mark Strand

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath. 

Advent Calendar Day 19: Scrooged

 

The classic Christmas story from Dickens never gets old.

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

"He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness."