Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming

The lyrics to this beautiful (to my ears) hymn are:

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming
As men of old have sung
It came, a flow'ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter
When half spent was the light.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it

The rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The Virgin Mother kind.

To show God's love aright,

She bore to men a Saviour,
When half spent was the night.

O flow'r, whose fragrance tender

With sweetness fills the air,
Dispel in glorious splendour
The darkness ev'ry where.

True man, yet very God,

From sin and death now save us,
And share our ev're load.

Those words give me comfort in the days leading up to Christmas. They remind me, both in form and in substance, of the beauty that is so much a part of our faith -- but is so easily and often forgotten.

I often miss the beauty that strays across my path. And then in moments like this I take the time to think on those things of beauty -- of the woman who offered me forgivenss as I passed her in the church office. The fellow who greeted me as we walked on opposite sides of the street the other evening. I think of the dark blue of the sky as I took a walk around the neighborhood last evening. I thought of the sound of the waters as I crossed the Central Bridge to and from the church today. I thought of Jordan's gangly self bounding down the stairs late at night to give his old dad a hug before he headed off to bed. I thought of Conor's beaming exuberance as he walked in the back door heading home from an evening out with his girlfriend. I thought of Kathy lying snug under the covers with her head and her book visible by the light of her bedside lamp. There's a lot of beauty surrounding me these days - in little ways and large. Christmas is coming.

I came across the following Christmas piece by the great African-American theologian Howard Thurman and that I offer to you both in celebration and I suppose, as challenge!

When the song of the angels is stilled
when the star in the sky is gone
when the kings and princes are home
when the shepherds are back with their flocks
the work of Christmas begins
to find the lost
to heal the broken
to feed the hungry
to release the prisoner
to rebuild the nations
to bring peace among the people
to make music in the heart.