Unsung and Unseen

I didn’t intend to change my morning routine.

I’m an early riser and generally the first awake in the house. For years, I’ve begun my day nestled into our oversized living room chair, sipping a double latte pulled from our beloved Electra espresso machine, waking slowly in the quiet. Often I ponder poetry by Mary Oliver or Jan Richardson or Rainer Maria Rilke, maybe an essay by Howard Thurman or Madeline L’Engle. Sometimes I journal, or meditate. I spend time in prayer. It’s a gentle way to start the day.

Then, about a month ago, our house was unexpectedly full in the early morning hours as our daughter and her friends excitedly packed their gear for a weekend trip to New Hampshire. Clutching my latte and seeking a quiet corner, I slipped into our sunroom, chilly though it is in the early morning before the radiators really get going, and snuggled into blankets on the futon couch. Only then did I look out the window and discover, to my delight, that the southeastern sky was ablaze with a red and golden sunrise. I was transfixed as the colors shifted and changed, as the sun rose in a brilliant blue sky. I’ve been living in this house for 3 1/2 years, and I’d never realized that I could see the sunrise from the sunroom!

I’ve been there every morning since. Since December 1, I’ve lit the candles of the Advent Wreath — we’re up to three! — in the early darkness and watched for the first light to rise above the rooftops across the street. Many mornings I’m treated to a lovely sunrise. Even when the dawn comes grey and cloudy, I’ve been renewed as the light grows in the sky each day.

What amazes me is that this dawn has happened each morning while I’ve sat in a chair facing the opposite direction. It’s been there every morning, and I’ve just not seen it. It took a disruption and lucky timing for me to recognize that this beauty could be my experience every day. All that was needed was me to turn around and notice.

The miracle of Christmas comes to us each year, and so often that holy Love is embodied something small and easily overlooked: a child’s shy smile in the grocery aisle, a neighbor’s friendly greeting, candlelight in the sanctuary, the stark beauty of the winter trees, a chance to offer a sandwich to someone hungry. The Love that is made flesh in Jesus greets us each morning, surrounds us each day, and settles down with us into sleep each night. It’s easy in our holiday bustle and planning and wrapping and baking and giving and getting to miss the ordinary, extraordinary miracle that God loves us enough to become one of us. And God came small: a baby born to a poor family in a small town. God, the creator of all that is, so often is embodied in the small and easily overlooked. What’s need is for us to turn, to slow down, to notice.

In these last days of Advent, and on into the twelve days of the Christmas Season, may each of us open in unexpected way to the glory of Love and Life that is with us, often unsung and unseen, every day. May you find a manger right in the middle of your life, waiting for you to recognize that Christ is born anew, again, forever.

A blessed Christmas to you all!

Pastor Barb