The poem I have chosen for December 15th in my Advent Anthology from Canterbury Press Waiting on the Word, is Christmas and the Common Birth by Anne Ridler. You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. the image above, is once more from the beautiful book of art which Linda Richardson made in response to Waiting on the Word.
She Writes:
The image for today looks, from a distance, like a peaceful, sleeping face. On closer inspection you will see it is made up of hundreds of intense scribbled lines. We can, from a distance appear calm to those around us, but perhaps our inner lives are in turmoil, those inner voices utterly draining and our value comes from what we ‘do’, not what we ‘are’. In the poem we hear that, “Christmas comes at the dark dream of the year that might wish to sleep ever…birth is effort and pain.” Our busy-ness is often a way to stay asleep, to avoid the call that Jesus and all the mystics make on our lives to wake up to a greater vision of life where we are children of God, the beloved of the Father.
Our prayer today may be of a harried or sick person. This is the person God wants to be with and we come to God in the reality of what we are and with all the scribbles and scrawls that seem to make up our life. We bring all our addictions and anxieties with us and turn away from them to God, because the space inside us is the same space that contains the cosmos. One moment of true silence will find us in loving heart of the Great Silence out of which everything is and has its being.
You can find you can find a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle
Christmas and the Common Birth
Christmas declares the glory of the flesh:
And therefore a European might wish
To celebrate it not at midwinter but in spring,
When physical life is strong,
When the consent to live is forced even on the young,
Juice is in the soil, the leaf, the vein,
Sugar flows to movement in limbs and brain.
Also before a birth, nourishing the child
We turn again to the earth
With unusual longing—to what is rich, wild,
Substantial: scents that have been stored and strengthened
In apple lofts, the underwash of woods, and in barns;
Drawn through the lengthened root; pungent in cones
(While the fir wood stands waiting; the beech wood aspiring,
Each in a different silence), and breaking out in spring
With scent sight sound indivisible in song.
Yet if you think again
It is good that Christmas comes at the dark dream of the year
That might wish to sleep ever.
For birth is awaking, birth is effort and pain;
And now at midwinter are the hints, inklings
(Sodden primrose, honeysuckle greening)
That sleep must be broken.
To bear new life or learn to live is an exacting joy:
The whole self must waken; you cannot predict the way
It will happen, or master the responses beforehand.
For any birth makes an inconvenient demand;
Like all holy things
It is frequently a nuisance, and its needs never end;
Freedom it brings: We should welcome release
From its long merciless rehearsal of peace.
So Christ comes
At the iron senseless time, comes
To force the glory into frozen veins:
His warmth wakes
Green life glazed in the pool, wakes
All calm and crystal trance with the living pains.
And each year
In seasonal growth is good– year
That lacking love is a stale story at best
By God’s birth
Our common birth is holy; birth
Is all at Christmas time and wholly blest.
Love the poem and Linda’s reflected words.
Really enjoying the anthology, so rich, giving me real food for thought and bringing much needed peace to my own scrambled thinking. Thanks so much for sharing. 🎄❄🌠
I’m really appreciative of this daily offering from Malcolm Guite. Thank you, Malcolm.
The words from Linda spoke to me and again she brings a fitting image. Thank you, Linda.
Thanks
Precious Abby these paintings with the words make me treasure you more and long to be more expressive myself in what I create. Can’t wait to see you:-)
Love, Dad
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Katie, here’s the theme of longing and hope again! Here is the fruit of a contemplative poet partnering with a contemplative/reflective artist! May you know the joy of anticipation today:-) You’re on a journey with wonderful guides: Tolkien, Lewis, Guite, West….all painting us to the longing of our souls Jesus:-)
Looking forward to journeying with you tomorrow:-) ________________________________
Love your poems even though the winter at Christmas motif is a bit odd for us here in NZ as we face 30 degrees Celsius each day. But the deep richness of your odes resonate strong and clear. Many thanks.
Many thanks