Pathways Press.com

Written by Margot Wallace from the Village Church.

MEDITATION:

One important feature of our holiday celebration took place on Christmas Eve when together we dressed up our carefully selected, perfectly shaped tree in complete joy and gratitude for the oxygen it provided all year!  With friends and neighbors, this ritual was accompanied by caroling, laughter, mince-meat pie, and, homemade ice cream, followed by attending Church service. This special tree-in-a-pot was planted in the yard shortly after the New Year. This image of the twisted branch belongs to the rarest pine in the USA, native to our coastline, notoriously hardy, sitting atop the ocean’s bluff, subject to all atmospheric conditions. Without the generous branches of Torrey Pine trees, we would have little shade from the Southern California sun; birds and other animals would be hard-pressed to find such solace from their predators. Their perky needles point to heaven, full of the hope that Christmas promises. Its’ spirit reminds me of “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer, which I memorized some time ago:

“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree;

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain, who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree!”

Painted by Margot Wallace

SCRIPTURE:

Luke 2:19-20

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

LINK TO CHRISTMAS MUSIC/VIDEO: