Winter shadows lengthen
as the earth turns her face from the sun.
Days grow colder, shorter, bleaker
as frost carpets crystals like a shroud
amidst this barren bracken where
we clutch our coats ‘round our necks,
stamp our boots,
rub our hands,
catch our breath-
anything to generate warmth
in a world grown weary and cold.
We pause perhaps to wonder: where has all light fled to?
Where is the lamp unto our feet
and the light unto our hearts?
When will the morning star rise once again
bringing hope, bringing warmth, bringing light?
There is a star in the east if we could but perceive it.
Wise men followed it. Isaiah foretold it. Shepherds beheld it.
Yet a modern, cynical world cares little for ancient wisdom, myths, and fables of old –
We prefer to stand shivering, wretched, abandoned in the cold.
Emmanuel comes once again in this, the winter of our discontent.
Uninvited, perhaps, but persistent-
“God with us” breaking in, breaking barriers, breaking chains
unthwarted by cold, by darkness, or despair.
A choir of angels still announces the arrival,
though we have grown deaf to all but our clamoring discord.
God with us. The faithful are wary. The cynics snicker.
But the wretched ones reach their hands towards a blackened sky
trusting that the light will yet again pierce the darkness,
that the days will lengthen,
that our collective heart will thaw.
Emmanuel. Expectantly we wait.