In Search of Christmas Day

 Scott Woods included this poem on his Christmas Album
It is title #16. Check out his tour schedule to see if he is coming to a town near you or treat yourself to a new Christmas Album!

 

 T'was Christmas Eve and all through town the lights blinked red and green,
Snow was softly falling down where naked worlds had been,
Last minute shoppers rushed on home, discarding final lists,
While others packed up and left town to see dear folk they’d missed

Then, as I gazed on up the street I spied a form alone,
He wandered as if searching for something a long time gone,
He paused to view the festive scenes in windows twinkling bright,
Where ‘Merry Xmas’ signs were strung in honor of this night

Then up the silent street He trod, his steps were sad and slow,
Unlike the rush these walks had known a few short hours ago,
Past Santa’s smiling face he walked, past a twinkling Christmas tree,
Up to a window brightly lit where he could stand and see

Inside each person rushed about dreaming of Christmas day,
Dressing up the turkey or tucking last gifts away,
Dreaming of feasts, laughter and gifts, tables o’er-flowing with food
Trees laden down with presents for all, oh, what a holiday mood

Stockings were hung at the fireplace, everything was complete,
The table was set with cookies and milk for Santa’s special treat,
While folk all sang the Christmas carols and talked of Christmas cheer,
The stranger outside the window turned away and wiped a tear

'Tis true, he cried, tis awful truth, I see it all too well,
The reason why they choose to cross out that first syllable,
'Tis Merry Xmas, that is sure, the baby and Bethlehem’s star
Are simply vague traditions from the past, so faint and far

They’ve forgotten the ‘Christ’ is what this day is really all about,
That the true meaning is all gone if they choose to cross Him out,
They’ve forgotten, it is Christ, not Santa, that represents Christmas Day,
And in truth it is Merry Xmas if they choose to put him away

He wiped his tears and whispered, I’m sorry but I cannot stay here,
I simply do not feel at home amidst this festive cheer,
I watched him turn with broken heart and slowly walk away,
Twas then I saw the Man was Christ in search of Christmas Day

Janet Martin

Wishing all of you a beautiful, blessed Christmas of awe and wonder!

God bless you.

...and thank-you for dropping by this porch!

Fit For a King

Yesterday my to-do list kept me hopping from dawn til midnight...

I kept meaning to do a blog-post but with the planned and unplanned keeping me on my toes
all of a sudden yesterday turned into today...

Today the world is a glass-castle...enjoy  our out and about-ness!

Nature is clad like royalty

In crown and gown befitting Her

Diamond and star-dust filigree

On lowly frond and lofty fir

Nature heralds Creator God

From Him, through Him, for Him Her praise

Seraphim of breathtaking laud

Captivates man’s astonished gaze

Nature, subject to One puts on

Beauty; Her garb designed by He

Who sent to earth His only Son

As a ransom for you and me

Nature in every season hails

The Artist of sky, sea and sod

His is the love that never fails

Nature or man; Creator God

Then let us learn from nature, dear

Like minstrels formed of leaf and limb

Not just at Christmas but all year

Raise joyous songs of praise to Him

© Janet Martin

 For from him and through him and for him are all things. 

To him be the glory forever! 

Amen.
Romans 11:36

So, Let's celebrate!

Merry Christmas

Call To Come, Let Us Adore Him!

 It is not hard to be filled with wonder by beauty we see...

What about Beauty that we cannot see, yet believe?!

Come, let us adore Him!

Come, let us not with idle bent

Fill thought with fear or discontent

But let us hear and thus be stirred

By the Glad News the shepherds heard

‘For unto us was born that day

A Saviour, Christ the Lord alway

With what we have in all we can

Let us love our fellowman

The gift of Jesus is no myth

Then let us honor Him therewith

Let humble hearts with Hope restored

Bow down and worship Christ the Lord

Equality with God, and yet

Christ came to pay the sinner's debt

Found in appearance as a man

He did not shirk salvation’s plan

Though King of kings and Lord of lords

He left His throne for cross horrors

…to trod for us the skull-strew hill

He bore our punishment until

In anguish and triumph He cried

“It is finished” then He died

And broke the grasp hell had on us

The Saviour of the world, Jesus

Jesus is love that sets us free

His perfect law of liberty

Is more than text upon a page

Deliverance, from age to age

Should charge our hearts with wonder wild

To worship Bethlehem’s Christ Child

© Janet Martin  

James 1: 19-27 

My beloved brothers, understand this: 

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger,  

for man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness that God desires.

Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and every expression of evil, 

and humbly receive the word planted in you, which can save your souls.

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.

For anyone who hears the word but does not carry it out is like a man 

who looks at his face in a mirror, and after observing himself goes away 

and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom, and continues to do so

—not being a forgetful hearer, but an effective doer—he will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, 

he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless.

Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: 

to care for orphans and widows in their distress, 

and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Martha, Martha...

 

this song isn't considered a Christmas Carol but I wish it was!

Every year I resolve to have a Mary Christmas, 

sitting at His feet, as it were, begging, tell me the story of Jesus 

... then the phone rings; someone wants a recipe, 

The fuel-man drops by trying to ease the blow on the pink slip 

with a humorous Norman Rockwell calendar

and Jim is leaving and needs breakfast and supplies

 and little girl is hungry for ' Baby Jesus birthday cookies, please'

...and I remember the laundry I started when I got up 

...and the fire too, (now needing re-starting)

 ...as I hunt for a stapler to hang up a new card

...and try to remember where I was before the thing that is, was.

and I haven't even touched the to-do list!

...sometimes I think I feel someone tapping me on the shoulder in gentle reprimand 

whispering, "Martha, Martha!"

 

³⁸ As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.^[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

 Oh! and this morning's first-day-of-winter sunrise was spectacular!

Thank-you, God, thank-you so much for myriad, breath-stealing beauty every single day!

 At our house there is as much thought put into Christmas Eve menu as Christmas Day

Little finger-foody treats to look forward to after the Christmas Eve Service.

But always first we read the story of Jesus' birth out of the big, old Family Bible

(and then, for a few minutes I feel like Mary;-)

 

But to make that Eve and Christmas everything it has *traditionally been
*(because traditions make the 'remember how we always...)

It takes planning and prep!

So, this poem is in Martha's defense:)

...for, if I sit too long 

in pastures green

by waters cool

Then who will feed 

the hungry throngs

home from work

or after school

and all they wonder 

there and now

is

'where's the chow?'

...sometimes I chide myself

My fuss and all

as I fret over 

dipped peanut-butter balls

(when the chocolate won't melt

and it tastes stale!)

Inhale, 

Exhale

...be still, fluttering heart

while I dream of rooms

and food that look

and taste

like a works of art

"Tell me the story of Jesus"

So on Christmas Eve

we sit

and turn to the pages that tell

of Heaven's marvelous gift

sent to earth

in Baby's birth

Wonder washes over us

in heavenly peace rare and sweet

Until someone breaks 

the silence with

'What's to eat?'

By Martha 
aka Janet 

It really is a Reason worthy of our best!
That's the thing to remember as we prioritize 
and dust and polish:)

Hath Winter Then a Heart of Tenderness and Winter Returns (oldies revisited)

Happy First Day of Winter, Everyone! 

Hath winter then a heart of tenderness

For landscapes clad in rags of brown and gray?

Where farewell and arrival coalesce

Winter spills forth as autumn slips away

She touches with redemption-tinted garb

The stricken aftermath of summer cheer

Her sugar-coated kisses soothe the yard

Where yesterday it suffered autumn’s tear

And where the wanton field lay naked, bare

She wreaths its frond and furrow with the gleam

Of diamonds fit to garnish angel’s hair

Tucking to earth the farmer’s finished dream

Granting a gilded respite to his care

  Spilling from sky a snowflake-choir requiem

***

Tis right to entertain both joy and grief

This season; the portent of hope and fear

Where we embark anew, the shoal, the sheaf

Of garnered days melded to bygone year

Like gathered harvest, seed then deed is wrought

Preserved beyond the elements of time

Its echoes tune the pastures of our thought

Where longing and fulfillment toll their chime

And now a gracious sheath of purity

Embellishes the dull and stricken plain

A mother with compassion’s sympathy

Blankets the grim reminders of our pain

Drawing our eyes to present mystery

History sleeps; to linger there is vain

***

Hath winter then a heart of tenderness?

White snow covers a year of scarlet tears

The barren bough reaches for her caress

The heart reaches beyond past hurt and fears

To offerings of hope and happiness

Unblemished; yet again a gift of grace

Ignores our monuments of selfishness

Where we have scathed and scarred her virgin face

With sordid sins of foolish fantasies

Time’s vault will not exhume our leaps of woe

But gently leads us from these agonies

Across a threshold unmarred as fresh snow

Granting to us but this; our memories

 To keep the good then let the remnant go  

Janet Martin~ 

Winter wanders in

wearing a white bridal gown

earth carries her veil

Winter Poem for the Child in Us...

 
Reluctant, defeated, autumn succumbs
To winter’s purposed and powerful grip
Stealthily sleek, silver silencing numbs
The ends of our noses and fingertips
Harshly the wind rakes its talons of steel
Over the cusp of the leafy-fringed ponds
Somewhere up yonder it touches a wheel
Showering the earth with quadrillion diamonds
Winter ah, winter, the predisposed foe
Open your pockets and bring on the snow

Pull out your mittens and dust off your sled
Bundle your babies in jackets of fleece
Starry-eyed children with cheeks painted red
Shrieking and rolling in winter’s release
Frosty the snowman returns to his post
Corn pipe and blue scarf to ward off the chill
Miniature angels in unnumbered hosts
Cover the rooftop and valley and hill
Tumbling and twirling and spiraling down
Winter returns in her star-studded gown


Spring, summer, autumn, green, azure and gold
Planting and pruning and gathering in
Winter is white bringing with the sharp cold
A season of rest and of quieting
Gather your loved ones around the warm hearth
Kinder is love when the fretting winds blow
Winter is keeping the seed in the earth
Tucking its bed with a blanket of snow
Its days are as numbered as all other things
Winter; the glorious harbinger of spring

Janet Martin

Not Too Late To Say I Love You....

 

I had begun another theme for today then this song was in my in-box this morning because

I subscribe to The Piano Guys channel...

Last year tragedy rocked the family of Piano Guys musician John Schmidt.

We all know someone who is missing someone this Christmas.

 May this stir us to treasure life's loves still within reach! 

Not too late to say I love you

Touch your face and kiss your cheek

Not too late to say I’m sorry

To find words we ought to speak

Love, life’s best blessing is waiting

To give someone’s heart a lift

This year, while we’re celebrating

Let’s make love our greatest gift

Walk the mile that makes us humble

Stop to listen while we may

Make a memory worth keeping

Who knows what fills morrow’s tray?

Hug each other, hold with wonder

We who need each other so

Thank the Creator of Heaven

For its glimpses here below

Darling, let’s not take for granted

What slips through our hearts and hands

Take a moment, be enchanted

By the music of the dance

Not too late to say I love you

Cherish cares that love will bring

For we never know for certain

When death changes everything

© Janet Martin