Just(e) Words

Wilderness: Advent Word 12

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Boz

As I began to ponder today’s assignment, I realized that when I think of wilderness, connotation is everything. My husband’s idea of wilderness is the Canadian tundra, hundreds of miles from civilization. The most common Google images contain mountain vistas with trees, and the photos on wilderness adventures.com depict beautiful vistas of snow-covered peaks and steep crags and oceans at sunset. By contrast, I understand that Jesus spent his forty wilderness days in the Judean desert, and even the Spanish and French versions of today’s word are cognates of desert. Continue reading →

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Voice: Advent Word 11

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Boz

For about six years, I produced a monthly newsletter entitled “The Voice” for the tiny congregation at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church. I included a message from the vicar, parish news with photos, a calendar of birthdays and anniversaries, happenings around the Anglican communion, and a children’s puzzle pages. And I generally wrote my own meditation of the sort that has made keeping a blog so seductive an occupation. I produced the bifold pamphlet without the aid of a desktop publishing program, cut and arranged the pages, ran them off on pastel paper with our photocopy machine, and folded, stapled, stamped, and mailed them. It was a gift-based ministry that gave me much satisfaction. Continue reading →

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Watch: Advent Word 10

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Boz

Etymologically, the word watch has remained fairly consistent since it was introduced into Old English as wæcce. Over these many centuries, the sense has been that of remaining awake for the purposes of vigilance, devotion, or public security. The meaning of “a small timepiece” arose only in the 1580s, from a mid-century word meaning “a clock to wake up sleepers.” Continue reading →

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Messenger: Advent Word 9

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Boz

“Saint John the Baptist,” Leonardo da Vinci (1513-1516?)

For the processional hymn yesterday at St. Michael’s, we sang about the last prophet in the Christian tradition, the messenger whose words of repentance we heed each Advent:

On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
announces that the Lord is nigh;
awake and harken for he brings
glad tidings of the King of kings.

Then cleansed he every breast from sin;
Make straight the way for God within,
and let each heart prepare a home
where such a mighty guest may come.

Continue reading →

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Prepare: Advent Word 8

Posted on December 10, 2017 by Boz

Music plays an essential rôle in my Advent preparations.

Liturgical worship is full of paradoxes, one of which is that we don’t sing Christmas carols as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus. This practice of self-denial has become part of my annual Advent discipline. Singing is necessary to my being, so forgoing the songs and carols of Christmas provides a strong reminder that to wait is difficult, to live only with hope is frightening, and to prepare is essential. Continue reading →

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Focus: Advent Word 7

Posted on December 9, 2017 by Boz

In the spring of 1965, my father entrusted me with his Kodak Brownie camera to take along on our sixth-grade field trip to the Salado Indian cliff dwellings at Tonto National Monument. Photography has been my passion through the ensuing fifty-plus years. Because today’s Advent word, focus, is such an important principle for those who follow my avocation, I have discovered a wealth of object lessons in the complex process by which light converges on a film plane or digital sensor. Continue reading →

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Mend: Advent Word 6

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Boz

Manufacturers of athletic shoes suggest that they be replaced every six months. College students who depend on government-subsidized Pell grants and student loans to support their families rush to the Apple store for an upgrade as soon as Tim Cook announces the next iPhone. Many tech devices and front-loading washing machines are manufactured so that batteries cannot be replaced and repairs cannot be made. In this age of planned obsolescence, when “disposable” is high praise on Madison Avenue, mending has lost its cachet. Continue reading →

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Heal: Advent Word 5

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Boz

Pavel Derka celebrates his successful treatment under the skilled hands and the compassionate care of hematologist-oncologist Dr. Jeffrey M. Crane

“Write what you know,” I have often told my English composition students. What I know about healing began when my husband was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in the summer of 2010 and continued through two rounds of increasingly toxic chemotherapy in 2014, a stem-cell transplant in 2015, and the slow process of recuperation that is ongoing. My education continues, of course, but I can speak with confidence about three things I have learned: Continue reading →

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Simplify: Advent Word 4

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Boz

The things we want and need are plain and true: To live in peace in a safe, warm home; to eat soup and bread and drink wine; to sleep curled in the arms of one we love; to speak words of awe or pain to one we call friend; to sing songs of joy; to read, to work, to play; to seek, to find, to cry, to dream. To wait and hope for the Lord to come to us in strange new ways. Continue reading →

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Gather: Advent Word 3

Posted on December 5, 2017 by Boz

Recounting his efforts to find the Holy Ghost in private prayer, John Donne confessed:

I lock my door to myself, and I throw myself down in the presence of my God, I divest myself of all worldly thoughts, and I bend all my powers, and faculties upon God, as I think, and suddenly I find myself scattered, melted, fallen into vain thoughts, into no thoughts; I am upon my knees, and I talk, and think nothing; . . . I gather new forces, new purposes to try again, and do better, and I do the same thing again. I believe in the Holy Ghost, but do not find him, if I seek him only in private prayer. (Sermon LXXVI, 1622)