Epiphany, the Presentation (Candlemas)

My Epiphany daybook for these 5 weeks of witness. Join me, won't you? 

(Read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Epiphany. See previous Epiphany daybook 2016 posts here)

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look

Simeon Holds the Christ Child
Rembrandt, 1666

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read

Psalm 84:1-4 / Luke 2:27-33, 36-38:  How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. Selah. / Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple... (read the rest here) / And there was a prophetess, Anna...She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day...(read the rest here)

all readings for the day: Malachi 3:1-4  • Psalm 84 or Psalm 24:7-10  • Hebrews 2:14-18  • Luke 2:22-40

You are welcome, also, to read my reflection on Anna, the prophetess: Seeing Salvation by the Light of Candlemas

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pray 

God of steadfast love, you sent your Son to be the light of the world, saving people everywhere from sin and death. As Anna gave thanks for the freedom he would bring, and Simeon saw in him the dawn of redemption, complete your purpose once made known in him. Make us the vessels of his light, that all the world may glory in the splendor of your peace. Amen. (source)

We give you praise with your servant Simeon:

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace;

Your word has been fulfilled.

My eyes have seen the salvation

You have prepared in the sight of every people,

A light to reveal you to the nations 

and the glory of your people, Israel.

Amen.

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listen

Listen to a recording of T.S. Eliot reading A Song for Simeon

Candlemas playlist

(Also, feel free to listen with me to my ever-evolving Epiphany playlist.)

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do

Light candles, give thanks for the season of light,
pray for the Light of Christ to go out into your neighborhood and the world

February 2 is Candlemas -- also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. In Jewish custom, parents would bring their newborn children to the temple 40 days after their birth, and thus, February 2 is the closing out of the season of Light (Advent, Christmastide, Epiphanytide).

Since the 4th century, special candles are lit during communion services on Candlemas and all the parish Church candles are blessed to remind us of this season. The tradition grew and people brought their candles from home to be blessed so that now each time a candle is lit we remember the light of Christ coming into the world. (source)

February 2 is also the mid-point between winter and spring. We head toward the light of longer days, even as we head toward the dark nights of Lent.

This week, light candles each night, recall together the joys of the weeks of light since Advent began, pray for eyes to see the light of Christ in your neighborhoods and in the world.

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Five Favorites: poems for Lent

Our daughter turned 18 this week. Brian prays blessing over each one, each year.
I only half listen because I'm trying to capture the photo, but it's a beautiful series of images!

Five favorite poems to read during Lent.

May I suggest you read out loud?  Even if you're alone.  Maybe even especially if you're alone. [click on the title to read each poem in its entirety]

-- 1 --

Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot

Teach us to care and not to care 

Teach us to sit still. 

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-- 2 --

The Wreck of the Deutschland by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east, 

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(this is one of the most satisfying read-aloud poems in existence!)

-- 3 --

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

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-- 4 --

Requiem for a Friend by Ranier Maria Rilke

Once ritual lament would have been chanted; women would have been paid to beat their breasts and howl for you all night, when all is silent. Where can we find such customs now ? So many have long since disappeared or been disowned. That’s what you had to come for: to retrieve the lament that we omitted. 

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-- 5 --

For Lent, 1966 by Madeleine L'Engle

It is my Lent to break my Lent, 

To eat when I would fast,

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Other good words online this week

• There's No Place Like Home by Garrison Keillor at National Geographic: "When a man lives in one place for most of his life, he doesn’t need GPS. He is guided by memories of boyhood bike rides, the ever present Mississippi, and the undeniable power of rhubarb."

• A Suggestion for Lent at Like Mother, Like Daughter:  "Live your Lent, don’t worry about watching yourself experience it, or for that matter, looking for signs that your children are experiencing it. You are and they are — if you live it."

• The Lent Project at Biola University: The Lent Project calendar starts on Ash Wednesday, March 5, and continues through Holy Week and Bright Week, ending on Sunday, April 27 and includes visual art, poetry, music and devotional thoughts for each of the 54 days of this season.

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A poetry-filled weekend for us all, dear ones.

For more Five Favorites, visit Moxie Wife!

landing on our knees

You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself or inform curiosity

Or carry report. You are here to kneel...

                         -- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

 For a variety of reasons (legitimate or otherwise), this has been a very difficult year to maintain a  healthy rhythm of spiritual practices. If taking a leap of faith is a spiritual practice then we should be pretty much spiritually muscled up around here.  One giant leap, with most days feeling like we're still hurdling through the air a bit.  And, thus, airborne, not able to fit in other sorts of practices such as solitude, study, silence.

In April, our entire family returned to New York for a packed itinerary of family celebrations. Somehow that literal flying through the air, cross-country, and then back to Austin again helped us imagine our toes beginning to settle into the soil of Austin.  We're still juggling more transition tasks that I don't want to think about right now, but our hearts and minds and bodies are beginning to exhale.  It feels good.

our Sabbath day at  Barton Springs

All of this settling down is a pretty good indicator that it's time to begin inhaling the Word and spiritual writings again rather than just snatching bits and pieces in the chaos of change.  To pray the hours. To kneel by my red-quilted bedspread each midday, reading a Psalm, inviting my friends and enemies into my intercessions. Asking several times a day for my daily bread because I forget from one hour to the next if someone is going to take care of me. Or the rest of the whole world.

I pick up again in A Year With God, right at the discipline of Worship. A fitting response to the settling grace God lavished on our little family this year.  I begin paying attention to moments again. Rehearse and recite the acts and presence of the God-with-us. Remember the notes to old songs, singing out loud in my kitchen.  Snap photos of the common flaming bushes at the side of the road. And in my backyard.

I could swear I've been holding my breath for 9 months and am just now coming up for air.  Gulping in God-beauty, warbling out grateful worship.

"To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."                                                                                                           -- William Temple

teach us to care and not to care [a blog fast]

During the season of Lent I'm making the commitment to get quiet, really quiet here.  I've been blogging for something like six years and I'm feeling the need to put it down for awhile to process privately, maybe do some writing for another space, maybe take some naps.  Not sure.

We do celebrate off-days on Sabbath (which we happen to celebrate on Monday since Sunday in a pastor's house is not exactly restful) so you might see me occasionally.  I value the conversations so many of you have with me here and will look forward to celebrating our risen Jesus together come April!

Grace and peace,
Tamara

[photo credit:  Ann Voskamp, The Way of Light Wreath]

Some of my Lent posts from past years:

• Shattered Shalom:  the poem I wrote for a Lenten devotional
• Searching for Chometz:  what I learned from the Jewish celebration of Passover
• free Lenten resources:  shared last year
• Living and Dying Palm:  what my name has to do with Ash Wednesday
• Living and Dying Palm, part 2: the part where I talk about celebrating my 40th birthday on Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday, 2011

Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

-- from T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday