COS Advent Devotions

December 22, 2023

Miriam Beecher

After Sunday, with my too-long devotion mostly written, I changed course completely. Be glad! It was wordy and a bit heavy, maybe a lot heavy.

Something more to the point stirred my thoughts and heart. What stirred was a memory of a Christmas Eve favorite from years ago, a book by Madeleine L’Engle. Many people may know her work from a children’s book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” I knew of that book later, but my first acquaintance was her book, “The Irrational Season.” In “The Irrational Season” she reflectively explores the seasons of the church year and she captivated me from the beginning. I would enjoy sharing more of her meaningful clever writing, but for now the following seasonal quotes.

A passage from the chapter on Advent:

This is the irrational season

When love blooms bright and wild.

Had Mary been filled with reason

There’d had been no room for the child.

A passage from the chapter on Christmas:

But now is the hour

When I remember

An infant’s power

On a cold December.

Midnight is dawning

And the birth of wonder.

Though not from Madeline L’Engle, I leave you with another favorite author from years ago, C.C. Lewis. He wrote “The Chronicles of Narnia” and many more books. And he wrote a lote about Christmas. I hope you enjoy his light-hearted Christmas quote.

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” 

So, dear children of God, let the joy, delight, and charm of a full-of-wonder child stir your thoughts!

With love, MIRIAM