winter solstice: Sacred Life Sunday

some treasures for this winter solstice, this :

*Jen Lee's Solstice: Stories of Light in the Dark. find out more about downloading it via CD Baby (for $6!) here. last night before sleep i turned out the lights, sat in the dark & listened to this beauty, this sweet & wise & spoken lullaby. thank you, Jen Lee.

*"To Know the Dark" by Wendell Berry; discovered here.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

*words by Rebecca Parker, President of Starr King School for the Ministry:

"Perhaps for a moment the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling and the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For in an instant, in the stillness, the chiming of celestial spheres will be heard, as earth hangs poised in the crystalline darkness,
and then gracefully tilts.

Let there be a season when holiness is heard, and the splendor of living is revealed. Stunned to silence by beauty we remember who we are and why we are here. There are inexplicable mysteries.

We are not alone. In the universe there moves a Wild One whose gestures alter earth's axis toward love. In the immense darkness everything spins with joy.

The cosmos unfolds us. We are caught in a web of stars, cradled in a swaying embrace, rocked by the holy night, babes of the universe.

Let this be the time we wake to life, as spring wakes,
In the moment of winter solstice."

*in the hushed stillness of this winter solstice i wish you this remembering: you are not alone. every*thing tilts toward love and joy. you are held, cradled, rocked. you are a precious babe of the universe.