Spiritual Sunday – Third Sunday of Advent
Jane Kenyon’s “Let Evening Come” beautifully captures the spirit of Advent. Dark though the world may be, Jesus has promised that “God does not leave us.” Dwelling in that assurance transforms the evening from terror into tranquility.
Instead of dreading the oncoming darkness, focus on those small moments that enrich a life. Think of evening as the time when the dew collects on the hoe after a day’s work and when “a woman takes up her needles and her yarn.”
Let Evening Come
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
Previous Advent Posts
Leslie Marmon Silko: A Pueblo Novel with an Advent Message
Allan Boesak: Let Us Enter Advent in Hope
Donald Hall: Advent and Horror at the Voice
Jennifer Michael: He Comes to Shatter Expectations
Thomas Hardy: At Once a Voice Arose
Robert Frost: Walking Down the Saddest City Lane
Herman Melville: Like the Crocus Budding in the Snow
Lucille Clifton: John the Baptist: His Mouth Be True as Time
Catherine Alder: The Twisted Fingers Letting Go
Madeleine l’Engle: The Stable Is Our Heart
David Whyte: The New Moon, A Prayer Opening to Faith
Madeleine L’Engle: Climate Hope Shines in Dark Times
Cecil Frances Alexander: Once in Royal David’s City
W. H. Auden: And the Light Shineth in the Darkness
Scott Bates: The Animals Are Trying to Warn Us
Christina Rossetti: Weeping We Hold Him Fast Tonight
Rowan Williams: He Will Come Like Crying in the Night
Rainer Maria Rilke: The Rest between Two Notes
Mark Jarman: The Intrusion of an Overwhelming Joy
Madeleine L’Engle: The Irrational Decision to Have Jesus