“Bringing Home the Tree” – Traditional print from a German storybook: Artist unknown
A few years ago, my friend Laurel realized that Christmas would never be the way she remembered it or the way she was acccustomed to celebrating it. Her two kids (with autism spectrum disorder) couldn’t handle the upheaval and stimuli. The family had to cut way back on decorating, gift-giving, traveling, eating… The story of how she made peace with that reality and still celebrates, only in a different way, is HERE.
One thing Laurel does is observe Advent. On December 1st each year her wonderful blog TOWARD CHRISTMAS gets activated. It becomes a tool to help not only her but all who read, to focus on the themes and deep meanings of Christmas.
This year she invited me to play along with her and her writers guild. We’re following the story of Jesus’ incarnation through Jesse Tree readings. Every day a new poem at TOWARD CHRISTMAS!
Why don’t you follow along?
Update on Thursday. We’ve seen some fine poems so far. I love the prose poem “Creation” by Denice Bezoplenko that appeared yesterday. It begins:
cre·a·tion /krē ā SH(e)n/ noun 1. Affection, brooding; Divine Intent, hovering, subtly, over earth, air, fire, and water, sun, moon, stars, and dust. 2. Word, wooing elements into a slow dance. 3. Love, drawn to our dark matter (who knows why?), finding home in us, loving the place, lighting it up; becoming the soft animal, intimately curled, putting the coffee on… ” read entire…
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Though Laurel’s experience isn’t part of my spiritual journey, in a way it is. For we’ve all come across adversity which brings us to a fork in the road. We can wallow in self-pity and bitterness, or choose to make something good of our less-than-perfect situation.
Join us each week at Spiritual Journey Thursday
This post is linked to Spiritual Journey Thursday, hosted by Holly Mueller at Reading, Teaching, Learning.
Violet Nesdoly / poems 
Maureen Sudlow
December 2, 2015 at 11:25 am
looks great
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hollymueller
December 3, 2015 at 3:42 pm
This is perfect! Thank you for sharing your friend’s story and how she still finds happiness in Christmas. The “Toward Christmas” blog platform is simply beautiful. Loved that poem – I want to use it for a mentor text with my students. I think it’s a great poem form idea!
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cvarsalona
December 4, 2015 at 5:05 am
Violet, thank you for sharing Laurel’s work. The poem in definition form is such a unique concept. I would like to try that at some point.
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