Advent Post IV

As a thank you for giving back to my alma mater, every year I receive a booklet for devotions and reflections on Advent from the president. This year the booklet was titled "Why Everything Matters" and featured reflections involving Ecclesiastes. Through this Advent season I'll be posting the prayers that come at the end of each reflection. 

My hope is that these prayers will encourage you (dear reader), regardless of your spiritual disposition to pause and reflect and perhaps add a layer of meaning to your holiday season. 

God of promise,

you have given us a sign of your love

through the gift of Jesus Christ,

our Savior,

who was promised from ages past. 

We believe as Joseph did

the message of your presence 

whispered by an angel,

and offer our prayers for your world,

confident of your care and mercy for 

all creation. Amen. 

Advent Post III

As a thank you for giving back to my alma mater, every year I receive a booklet for devotions and reflections on Advent from the president. This year the booklet was titled "Why Everything Matters" and featured reflections involving Ecclesiastes. Through this Advent season I'll be posting the prayers that come at the end of each reflection. 

My hope is that these prayers will encourage you (dear reader), regardless of your spiritual disposition to pause and reflect and perhaps add a layer of meaning to your holiday season. 

A memorial for those murdered in Newton,CT

God of joy and exultation,

you strengthen what is weak;

you enrich the poor

and give hope to those who live

in fear. 

Look upon our needs this day. 

Make us grateful for the good news of salvation

and keep us faithful in your service until the coming of

 our Lord Jesus Christ,

who lives forever and ever. Amen. 

Newton Reflection

In tying my thoughts about Christmas and the Holidays to the tragic events on Friday (14th) in Newton I keep being drawn back to the hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."  We all echo the sentiments of the verse which calls for the arrival of healer. 

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.

At the moment we are all enthralled by grief and sorrow.  

Advent Post II

As a thank you for giving back to my alma mater, every year I receive a booklet for devotions and reflections on Advent from the president. This year the booklet was titled "Why Everything Matters" and featured reflections involving Ecclesiastes. Through this Advent season I'll be posting the prayers that come at the end of each reflection. 

My hope is that these prayers will encourage you (dear reader), regardless of your spiritual disposition to pause and reflect and perhaps add a layer of meaning to your holiday season. 

Laboring God, 

with axe and winnowing fork

you clear a holy space

where hurt and destruction have 

no place, 

and a little child holds sway.

Clear our lives of hatred and despair,

sow seeds of joy and peace,

that shoots of hope may spring forth

and we may live in harmony

with one another. Amen.

Advent Post I

As a thank you for giving back to my alma mater, every year I receive a booklet for devotions and reflections on Advent from the president. This year the booklet was titled "Why Everything Matters" and featured reflections involving Ecclesiastes. Through this Advent season I'll be posting the prayers that come at the end of each reflection. 

My hope is that these prayers will encourage you (dear reader), regardless of your spiritual disposition to pause and reflect and perhaps add a layer of meaning to your holiday season. 

Salsbury Cathedral "Darkness to Light" Advent Procession

Unexpected God,
your advent alarms us.
Wake us from drowsy worship,
from the sleep that neglects love,
and sedative of misdirected frenzy.
Awaken us now to your coming,
and bend our angers into your peace. 
Amen. 

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A Small Salve...Humbly Given

It's been a tough 6 months. I was unfortunate enough to lose a friend and mentor this past summer, and today I received word that the young child of a couple who attend my parent's home church passed away. It seems cliché to remark that the most tragic events happen to the most undeserving of people. As I'm sure all young souls appear in posterity, Thao was a child who exhibited a unique and admirable zest for life. How many 5 or 6 year olds do you know who liked to bake? Thao's parents are people who exhibit a brightness in living...full of creativity, community, and joy.  I would hardly be so bold as to believe that I can apply any sort of meaning towards this tragic event but I do believe that I can humbly present a small token of comfort.

I encourage everyone who might read this to reference my past post in honor of Ryan Davis.
Thao's parents and their close community are deeply christian and there will be an outpouring of scripture directed to bring comfort and healing. I submit this poem for the reflection of the thoughtful reader.


Thanatopsis was written by William Cullen Bryant, an American poet from the Romantic era. This is his most well known poem and is his reflection on death. While one might not be able to call this poem "christian" the themes of a known destination, the comfort of Nature, the knowledge that death does not doom any soul to isolation, and the hope of future reunion are all elements that any religious reader will identify with and find comfort in. I hope this poem will provide a drop in a soon to be overflowing bucket of encouragement, solidarity and love for Thao's family.

16. Thanatopsis 

TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides	5
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images	10
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—	15
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,	20
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go	25
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.	30
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings,
The powerful of the earth,—the wise, the good,	35
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move	40
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,	45
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings	50
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings,—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first	55
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe	60
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come	65
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—	70
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take	75
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch	80
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

William Cullen Bryant