• Home
  • My Story
  • Bookish
  • Christian Teaching
  • Thoughts
  • Food For Thought
  • Kim Chronicles
Lilies from Heaven

Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day for Advent, Christmas, and Ephiphany

12/9/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
What are you reading for Advent? There are so many good books out there, and one of my favourites is this gem from Malcolm Guite. This man has poetry in his blood, in his family, and he is a pleasure to read! 

I am re-reading this one for a second time because it is such a great one to get you to slow down, think about Advent themes, and just enjoy the language in it. I recommended it last year along with two others, but this has lingered with me.

So, what does it have? There is a poem a day and a bit of commentary on it. It will slow you down, and it will give you hope.

He has carefully selected poets, old and new, for this beautiful book. There are older names, like Christina Rossetti and G.K. Chesterton. The newer poets include Scott Cairns and Robert Hayden. All the poems have been selected because there is something in them that relates to Advent and the themes of waiting, Grace, gifts, creation, and, of course, hope.

Each of these pieces is beautiful in and of itself. But taken together, it becomes more. It becomes hopeful and hope filled! His deep insight and spiritual wisdom created in me a new appreciation for each day of Advent and a deeper love for Jesus, Immanuel, the Light of the World!

Let's look at his entry for December 12:

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
  The moon is hid; the night is still;
  The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

 
Four voices of four hamlets round,
  From far and near, on mead and moor,
  Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound.

Each voice four changes on the wind,
  That now dilate, and now decrease,
  Peace and good will, good will and peace,
Peace and good will to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
  I'd almost wish'd no more to wake,
  and that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
  For they controll'd me when a boy;
  They bring me sorrow touched with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule. 

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

The man hears the peaceful calm of the bells but cannot listen. There is a fuller confession of grief and bitterness.

And grief does attack when we are in the midst of someone else's peace and beauty. 

And yet he returns to listen to the bells. It helps to control the grief. He returns to an earlier time when he was a boy and the bells were a comfort to him. 

There is healing, hope, in the sound of the bells. He is changed.

Malcolm Guite is Chaplain of Girton College in Cambridge. He has written a number of books that are similar in helping the reader to ‘see’ the Holy Spirit in the poetry.  He has written for the church calendar, including Sounding the Seasons, Word in the Wilderness, and The Singing Bowl.


Order this from Amazon or anywhere else and I am sure you will slow down like I did! You will see the Lord Jesus and his birth. Enter his world and be filled. Waiting, wonder, mystery, and mainly hope.

2 Comments
complex diet drops reviews link
8/16/2020 08:41:14 am

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic

Reply
FastSize link
8/16/2020 08:43:35 am

thanks for the tips and information..i really appreciate it

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Storyteller, 
    Glory Seeker,
    Grace Dweller,
    ​English Teacher.

    Archives

    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    September 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    February 2014
    October 2013
    November 2012
    September 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    September 2011

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Advent Art
    Advent Poetry
    Adventure
    Africa
    Aging
    American South
    Anne Bogel
    Art
    Artful Reading
    Asia
    Beautiful Bride
    Beauty
    Beauty From Brokenness
    Being Different
    Bells
    Benefits Of Reading
    Betrayal
    Birds
    Birth Of Christ
    Blessings
    Book-of-luke
    Bread
    Brokenness-and-blessing
    Childhood
    Christian Beauty
    Christianity
    Christmas
    Christmas Narrative
    Christmas Poetry
    Classic Novels
    Community
    Compassion
    Deliciousness
    Easter
    E.B. White
    Empathy
    Fact
    Fellowship
    Firenship
    Food
    God's Unconditional Heart
    Gospel
    Grace
    Gratitude
    Great Storytelling
    Growing Older
    Happiness
    Healing
    Holy Week
    Homecoming
    Hope
    Hospitality
    Humility
    Jesus
    Joy
    Korean
    Lent
    Light
    Linda Sue Park
    Lost Boys Of Sudan
    Love
    Malcolm Guite
    Mathematics
    Memoir
    Mermaid Child
    Multiculturalism
    Mystery
    Night
    One Thousand Gifts
    Peace
    Perseverance
    Picture Books
    Poetry
    Prayer
    Quest
    Reading
    Reading Aloud
    Reading Life
    Refugee Issues
    Salvation
    Savior Prince
    Screen Time
    Simple Living
    Spirit
    Stories
    Sudan
    Tennyson
    Trees
    Truth
    Waiting
    Water
    Weeping
    Wine
    Woldweller
    Women
    Wood
    Word
    Woundedness
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly