Sabbath time. Sabbatical time. Jubilee time. Time to rest, to delight in what is given, to breathe in the beauty. Time to be fallow, to heal wounds, forgive, regenerate. Time to restore the world to its primal pattern. Time to anticipate a new world in which justice, mercy, and peace truly flourish. Time that anticipates the end and fullness of all time when tears, mourning, and death itself will yield to the bountiful, blooming garden of God’s own time.
Only my footsteps in the snow,
Only the glow of my fire,
Only a choir of wind to sing the benediction.
But I feast on memories
In a holy place.
It has been so long since I have heard my own voice
It startles me
When I say the grace.
May all things lost, apart, alone
Find some small shelter of their own.
~ from THE ART OF BEV DOOLITTLE, "A Mountain Man's Christmas" by Elsie Maclay
