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Spiced Life

(Advent)

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A season starts

Tomorrow

On my grandmother’s

Birthday

She would be

Well over a hundred

The season’s been around

Since

I imagine

Medieval times

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We light candles,

One Sunday

By one

Four candles

We might use another candle

Lighting the four

Or a candle might

Appear later

Set in or near the others

Call it

The Christ candle

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A circle

A wreath

Is a common design

And practice

Into which we set the candles

All four there

(light them

one by one)

There are songs

I think my favorite

Is the song about

Keeping mortal flesh

Silent

To stand rather

In fear and trembling

Because it’s God who comes to

Earth

And is near

As at creation,

First birth of everything

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It is typically

A darker season

Church rooms slowly rebuilt

With light

Ideally, it is a quiet

Time, though

The world gets noisier

All the time

And in our

Insides, too

A challenge it might be to find

Minutes

Inside hours

Inside and out

To sip, to think

To have quiet words

With company

Or for oneself

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Not that Christmas noise is bad

Because it’s not

With bells

And open presents

Come enjoyment

And, if we have it right,

Joy itself

I hope joy arrives for you

Starting in the quiet

Building toward a jubilee,

Even a

New year with

All menacing overthrown

All things allowed

That need to

To begin again

Or simply better days

In coming

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C L Couch

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Three candles lit for the three first Sundays of advent.

Photo: Niklas Nordblad – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1488786

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