Life...

This morning I watched the sun come up - a great big, egg-yolk yellow ball, pulsing with life. On either side of it, the clouds spread out in baby pink, fading gradually into the pale blue of the wintry sky; and down below, on the horizon, hiding behind the spidery silhouettes of a row of bare trees, lay the Chilterns, all dressed in smoky purple.
Up above me, in a hawthorn tree, a robin warbled away, singing its heart out. What a way to welcome a new day! Life doesn't get much better...

The Jesse tree: Part 2

In Scandinavia, today is Little Christmas Eve; we are very nearly at the end of Advent. That must mean our Jesse Tree is almost finished! I think I will miss it when it's gone... *sniff* Actually, who I am kidding? By then we'll have put up our CHRISTMAS TREE! Ha ha haa! 
But I digress...

Here's what we've put on the Jesse tree since my last post:
14. A stone altar, made with little stones from our garden (Elijah's 'Battle with the Ba'als')

15. A pair of garden-wire tongs holding a painted fimo "burning coal" (God sends Isaiah)
16. Lots of glass 'tear-drops' (Jeremiah weeps over the people of Israel)
17. A stone watchtower, made from a cardboard vegetable tray (Habakkuk watching and waiting for God to rescue His people)
18. A painting (printed off from the internet), depicting a trowel and a brick wall (Nehemiah over-seeing the rebuilding of the city wall after the return to Jerusalem)

19. A scallop shell for John the Baptist (brought home from a Breton beach by my father)
20. A little fimo White Lily, made by my cousin and painted by me (Mary)
21. Another fimo creation, this time of a mother and child, for Elizabeth and her son John
22. A pencil for Zechariah

Tomorrow will be a little manger, for You Know Who - and there you have it! One completed Jesse tree...

Happy "Little Christmas Eve"!      

The tree of Jesse

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, 

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit." 

Isaiah 11: 1

In the corner of our dining room, we have a large bare branch; this is our Jesse Tree. Each day during Advent we make an ornament based on a Bible story, going all the way from the creation to the birth of Jesus.

So far we have:

1. A round disc with a picture of a white-bearded man juggling planets (the creation)

2. An apple from our garden (Adam and Eve - the first sin)

3. A rainbow (God's promise to Noah)

4. Lots of gold stars cross-stitched on a blue background (God's promise to Abraham)

  (although my mother, who embroidered it, doesn't think it's good enough, and suggests we get rid of it and just hang lots of wooden stars all over the tree instead - mem. to self: find some wooden stars!)

5. A little collage of a ram caught in a thicket (the almost-sacrifice of Isaac)

6. A gold-painted string-and-matchsticks rope ladder (Jacob's vision)

7. A very natty mini multi-coloured coat made by my mother, complete with mini coat-hanger! (Joseph)

8. Another collage, this time of a bush surrounded by fire (the calling of Moses) 

9. A wooden carving of a sheep that my father brought me from the Czech Republic (the passover lamb) 

10. Two fimo stone tablets, complete with ten commandments! (Well, ten roman numerals anyway...)

11. A painted fimo ram's horn trumpet, officially called a "shofar", for the fall of Jericho (this is the effort I am most proud of!)

12. A gold crown for the beginning of the Kingdom of Israel (Unfortunately I copied this from a picture of English kings' crowns and so I put a cross on the top, forgetting that that's christian, which the Israelite kings certainly weren't! Oops!)

13. A gold shepherd's crook, taken from our PlayMobil St Nicholas (David, the shepherd king)

Tomorrow will be a stone altar for Elijah's 'Battle with the Ba'als'. Now how am I going to make that...?

My hand-made shofar

Aerial displays

Yesterday I saw two red kites clawing and tumbling in the air as they fought for food territories - which must, I imagine, be getting scarce now the harsh wintery weather has set in. And this morning, as I stood in the garden watching the sun rise in a glowing blaze of pink and tangerine, to my great delight two light aircraft appeared in the sky above me, flying perfectly synchronised loop-the-loops amidst hazy wreaths of pink and purple clouds...

"When roses bloom in December..."

"When roses bloom in December,
 when pears grow on an apple tree,
 when snowflakes fall in the summer,
 you'll be true to me..."
                                 - Snowflakes in the Summer, sung by the Everly Brothers

Well, I've never seen pears growing on an apple tree, nor have I seen snowflakes in the summer (though I have seen a hailstorm); but I've often and often seen roses blooming in December. Unfortunately, when the hard frosts come the poor little roses get punished for their pains...

                                     

The dying of the year...

A fine mist has descended on the countryside, and with it a deep sense of peace born of acceptance, and submission to a power greater than its own.
For Nature's first burst of autumnal defiance is over; she knows now that she cannot stop the advance of winter. She is like an old woman who knows her work is done (and has the quiet pride of knowing it well done), and now she lays aside her knitting, and sits quietly in her chair by the fire, slowly rocking back and forth, back and forth, waiting, without fear, for the end. And yet she knows, this wise old woman, that it is not the end...

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

Shall we have snow?

Where's your barn, robin?

 The North Wind doth blow,

and we shall have snow,

and what will the robin

do then, poor thing?

He'll hide in a barn and
keep himself warm, 
with his head tucked under
his wing, poor thing. 

A faintly embarrassing episode occurred in my house this morning.

About six months ago I made up my own tune to "The North Wind Doth Blow"; and a couple of weeks ago, I decided to turn it into an action song...
This morning I began to sing it again, and as I sang it I thought I would run over the actions as well, so as not to forget them. Unfortunately, just as I was acting out the robin (stomach out, head back, arms placed neatly behind, and a little self-important hop) my mother appeared immediately behind me. Ahem!
You might have thought I would have learnt my lesson after the equally embarrassing incident when a friend suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor, just as I was shaking my finger at "Miss Polly"...
(Could this be why most people give up singing action songs after the age of about nine, I wonder?)