Mike King

O Star-flinging God

O Star-flinging God,

whose light dances across eternity,

     dazzle us into your presence

     this new year.

 

Open our hearts to the mystery of your love.

 

Awaken us to your presence,

     knit to the ordinary.

Reveal to us what is possible, but not yet present.

Heal us, that we might be healers.

 

Reconcile us to you and to ourselves,

     that our living might be reconciling.

 

Stop us often, we pray

     with news that is good

     with hope that holds

     with truth that transforms with a Word

          tailored to this trail we're on.

 

May the word of your grace guide our steps

     like the sun by day

     and the north star by night,

     as we travel into the gift of a new year. Amen.

                                                     Glenn Mitchell

(from MINemergent 12-30-2011)

Joy to the World

600 shoppers break out in Praise...

A couple of weeks ago the Opera Company of Philadelphia, consisting of approximately 600 voices, spontaneously sang the "Hallelujah Chorus" during a busy shopping day at Macy's Center City in Philadelphia.   The famous Wanamaker Organ is housed in the Macy's Center City. The Wanamakr Organ was built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and was designed by renowned organ architect George Ashdown Audsley, author of The Art of Organ-Building. In 1909 it was moved to its present location.  The history of this organ is very interesting.

They called the event a "Random Act of Culture." It is extraordinary and left me in tears in a public coffee shop (I hate that, I think it scares people), nevertheless, this video is a glimpse of beauty and a wonderful Good News proclamation that is actually GOOD NEWS.  If you watched it, what was your reaction?

 

The best gift ever survived...

Here is a short TED talk by Stacey Kramer (only 3 minutes).  I've watched it twice and I'm still wiping away the tears... powerful.

 

The Beauty and Power of Snowflakes

While I'm fixiated on this wonderful Christmas snowstorm, here is a poem I wrote several years ago.

A snowflake so fragile. Alone, what can it do?

Then come two, now five, wait… nine, 

      all still seemingly quite benign.

A snowflake, so fragile what can it do?

Alone, not much except look pretty,

          yet together they can conquer a city.    

Snowflakes

 

Snowflakes
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow