a prophetic voice-

The end of the year 2015 approaches, and for the month of December, I have been using a lovely little booklet of writing prompts, courtesy of Jacinta and Cyndi of "Snapdragon Journal", an on-line literary magazine ( www.snapdragonjournal.com ). Faced each day with a meaningful quotation and an equally-meaningful question, I have been writing...sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, always from the heart, and today, I'm sharing some of these scribblings with you, dear reader. Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, Féliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel.   The Year's Last Red Light I stand in the last red light of the year, watching as the almost-setting sun paints the sky in glowing hues aware that I have journeyed far and long and wondering just how long           sunset will last.        wondering when the light will go            and darkness come         wondering if I will welcome it,             embrace it, if I will find within             its velvet folds,

I was going through some of my poems this morning, ones written several years ago, and I came upon this one, so very apropos to the current political and world situation, and to my feelings about what I see and hear. And so, I'm sharing it with you, in the hope that somewhere, somehow, some heart will resonate with mine. Christmas Pilgrimage O God, though I have long lived with more questions about you than answers, of one thing I am certain- from you flows all Creative Energy, from you flows Life, from you flows Love. How, then, God of Creativity, Life & Love, have we, your children, so perverted your gifts that we can look at another human being, created- like us- in the Divine Image, and see only differences, permitting them to separate and divide us? Beneath this thin covering we call skin, beneath the surface appearance of uniqueness, we are the same! We are one! A beating heart enlivens each of us... blood of red flows through arteries and veins...

       It washed over me like a tsunami, the wave of overwhelming grief. Totally unexpected. Taking me totally unaware. And there I stood, my tears co- mingling with the water of my morning shower, as I was bathed in the mellow strains of Annie Murray's "I'll Be Home for Christmas" wafting up from the CD player in the living room.     I hadn't felt this way in many years... and yet the grief was so raw, so present, belying the fact that the loss had happened 37 years ago. It was Christmas Eve 1978 and our family was gathered at the home of my parents for our traditional Christmas Eve celebration, before going to the Candlelight Service together. This had long been a highlight of the holiday for all of us- my parents, my sisters, and their families, and we were all eagerly awaiting the arrival of my youngest sister, to complete the family circle.     The kids wanted to eat so the gifts under the tree could be distributed and opened and Mother was

In the seventh year of the Presidency of Barak Obama, when Pat McCrory was governor was governor of North Carolina, and Larry Williams was mayor of Rural Hall, during the term of ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, the word of God came to Nazareth Lutheran Church in Rural Hall, NC.    This is the way Luke introduces John the Baptist to us…setting the imperial and political and religious scene. But- lest we miss it in the midst of all the pomp and circumstance- there is this significant fact: the word of God came to a nobody, a lone, strange, eccentric mystic and prophet in the wilderness, in a wild, harsh no-man’s land far from family and government and temple. There in that wild and threatening place, John heard a voice not his own…God coming, as God does, to one of God’s people, to one clearly outside the establishment of the day, to one who would not be expected to be the bearer of God's word...God speaking and John listening... clearly, fully li