THE FULL LONG AGO

Painting by Egor Zaytsev (Russia)

PAST PRESENCE

Dressing the Christmas tree
Used to take all the family
An hour or two to do,
Back then the house hummed
With laughing children,
As each shiny bauble was hung
On the welcoming fir.
Their shouts of glee
Twinkled like the crowning star
Bright atop the highest bough.

Now she does the task alone,
Her eyes twinkling at memories
Of the full long ago.
Each glimmering trinket
Unlocks some olden scene
Of the family gathered
Around the open fire,
Flames adance
Reflecting in the adorned tree
Light drops of time’s passage.

Gerard O'Shea

MAKING ROOM

HEAVEN'S LIGHT

THE MIRACLE

When all the winds were mild,
Mary came to me apart
and laid the Holy Child
here inside my heart.

My heart was made the manger,
and my body was the stall.
And now no man is stranger:
my life goes out to all,

To bring to each of them
this Child of heaven’s light,
to let them enter in, like flames
of candles to the holy night.

 Georg Johannes Gick:

BIBLE NETWORK

ONE MINUTE SERMON

JUST A SEASONAL THOUGHT

ECO ANGEL