Love Came as a Child

For them that walk in starkness,
a lucid dream appears;
for them, a retreat from darkness
draws on the horizon and cheers.

Yea, there was a second and a third,
but when was spoke the first word,
that indeed was a concept: Love.
(Sung, as if from somewhere above.)

Then, held safe from all harms
as might lie in the wild,
from Labor to a mother’s arms,
Love came as a child.

Love, appearing as light,
thus cast darkness away
into new realms of night,
visible as shades of grey.

Abundant, how abundant,
and full, oh, so verily sooth:
Love, to all life incumbent,
our charge, our care, our truth.

What the shepherds saw,
what, to worship, sages sought:
loving care should be the flaw
to defy any, all, prizes bought.

The metaphor of the cattle stall,
is both the sermon and reminder:
A peaceable kingdom is here for all,
but only when we are in deed kinder. 

Love, as a child, came down—
Incarnate Love, we cannot shirk;
Life, Love’s cradle and crown
is, in every generation, our work.

© 2018 Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Dear Ones, 

My wish for you, now and always, is that Love be your most abundantly shared and greatest flaw. Imagine the epitaph: “Their one flaw was that they loved too deeply, too much…” May your days be filled with everything that can be shared with love and laughter; even hardship is soon overcome where Love is lively and at work. Many hands move the work forward, onward and upward. Blessings to all!

Small Miracles

At the risk of sounding maudlin, I wish to report another holiday miracle.

It is a small thing, but I believe it illustrates something significant about humanity.

At least six months ago, both of my children's scooters were stolen. I had gone to the trouble of marking them, both with indelible markers and with a metal etching tool, with each child's name and my phone number.

Alas, the phone did not ring.

I sent an email request to my local FreeCycle network, to see if anyone had a scooter or two piled up in the garage.  FreeCycle, by the way, is a fabulous help when it comes to household management. All the world is a swap meet, after all, and if you need to get rid of that something that has been gathering dust, but that someone else might want enough to drive to your house and pick up, this is the network for you.

After a few weeks, I received a reply from a woman who was clearing out her garage. Evidently, her teens had moved on from kick scooters to bicycles or even cars. So she had a tangled mass of scooter frames in various states of disrepair. I took those off her hands, but we hadn't gotten around to reconstruction.

("HA!" You say. "You just added to your JUNK!" Read on.)

Just the other day, we received a phone call from a woman who had been cleaning out her back yard and had discovered a scooter that did not belong to her family, with this name and phone number. Did the scooter belong to us?

My husband had to drive half an hour to retrieve the scooter, which had seen much use during its walkabout. I was emboldened to pull out the snaggle of scooter frames from the garage. From five scooter skeletons, we were able to reconstruct two useable scooters, one of which I carefully inscribed with my daughter's name and my phone number.

The children were delighted to have scooters once again.

I, meanwhile, have resolved to obtain the needed parts for the remaining three frames and to finish fixing them up. I will then donate the four extra scooters to a nearby homeless shelter. One good turn deserves another. Amen! And, let us pass it on!

Even at this time of year, when people seem to be all about things and commerce, there are golden individuals who will go out of their way do the right thing. This is the significant point about humanity.

May your Winter Holiday, whichever it may be, be filled with the goodness and kindness of humanity in all your travels and meetings.

Be filled, and pass it ON!