Christmas hike

In the still of the dawn each Christmas morning, I venture to the forest to breathe in God’s blessings. I sense the spirit of the Lord upon me. It is a feeling of peace; a feeling that God is with me as I journey on this day of our Lord’s birth.

There is nothing quite like this annual hiking ritual. It is deep within nature that grace opens the door to God’s strength and glory. Though I hike a lot, this day is different. My senses are overwhelmed with Christmas hope. Jesus is born, Hallelujah!

All my life, my affinity for snow has awakened deep joy within my soul. When the flakes arrive on Christmas morn, it not only affirms my kinship with nature, it nurtures my kinship with God. I bundle up, head for a favorite spot and take in the splendor. Here are some of my favorite memories:

On this day, all nature proclaims God’s presence as I surrender myself to the beauty. God’s soothing breath gusts through the towering pines. Branches, heavy with snow, bow to their Creator.

The early morning songbirds wake up the world, triumphantly declaring that our Savior is born.  

The elusive Pileated Woodpecker thunders to a beat like no other on Earth. Its majesty echoes through the pines. I feel God intimately.

A lone deer, normally camouflaged by God’s intentional paint strokes, quietly burrows its snout through the drifts that cover and protect its precious nutrition. Its instincts are in perfect tune with the universe.

The pristine lake glistens as the snow blankets its shining surface. The art of God is awesome. I watch in wonder.

The Bald Eagle hovers over open water, eyes keenly trained on the blessed dinner below. Time stands still. So perfectly designed is God’s creation.

The snow calls me to fall to the ground and look to the heavens. I flail my arms to create a snow angel. How appropriate! I linger in its snowy frame, feeling only warmth. I am so thankful.

I shake myself off, and with gratitude swelling in my soul, I travel toward home, anticipating the day of family and fun, worship and warmth…and hope…always hope. All Earth is Hopeful.

Jules Irish is a retired writer and public relations professional and happy St. Paul Lutheran Church volunteer.

Ish-shee, sweet baby girl

The woman felt at home at the American Embassy in the capitol city of Ethiopia. It’s a familiar structure, built just like any federal building you might see in the States. One moment you're on a busy street in Addis Ababa with all of its people and noise and animals and chaos, the next you’re in Any Town, U.S.A. walking on solid concrete through heavy doors to do something official.

The official business that day was the adoption of a child, a process more than three years in the making. It was a spring day in 2013. Could you feel the joy?

At dusk, the woman and her husband—as light and buoyant as they had ever remembered feeling—returned to the hostel with their daughter (was she really . . . finally their daughter?!) and prepared for bed. The child was sweet in her new pajamas. She was tiny. Her legs, at first glance, were shockingly small. Though the new parents could tell that their daughter was tired, the child was steadfast in staying awake. She allowed her mother to pace the floor, her slight body resting heavily against the woman’s chest, but if the bed were approached, the girl would resist with an arched back and hoarse cries.

"Ish-shee, sweet girl," the mother whispered in clumsy Amharic over and over again. "It's okay ... Ish-shee."

 

Just as it had been for Mary, for her own mother, for her sisters and aunties and any new parent before her, the moment was long awaited. She existed to feel this beating heart against her chest.

And yet—as is so often the case in this rebellious, incredible world we inhabit—the moment felt significant, but was also slightly baffling. Nothing was turning out exactly the way she had expected. The power had gone out again throughout the city. The room was dark and there was crying. The child was already 15 months old. The two had only just met.

“It’s going to be okay,” promised the mother from the Midwest, whispering softly to her Habesha baby.

This mother believed the words she uttered in the darkness. Probably because she believed in GOD and in LOVE and in a world that needs to be electrified by JOY in order to be restored.

She kept rocking her child back and forth on the cold tile floor saying “Ish-shee, sweet baby girl. Ish-shee.”

Comfort, comfort my people, says our God.

Ish-shee, He promises.

Leslie Klipsch is a freelance writer and editor. She lives in Davenport with her husband and three children.

Illuminated

A month had gone by. The last word I gave my parents was a promise to make my way to Los Angeles where a ticket home would be waiting. I gave them my word like pennies in the cup of a beggar — here, take this, it means nothing to me and everything to you. And soon after I hung up the phone it wasn’t hard to disappear across the Tijuana border again, back to my literal hole in the wall, where the days and nights are a personal loss against the gains of drugs and alcohol. I was eighteen years old.

Keeping time with trouble and heartache I wandered with strangers through a dark life. And I stayed lost for a long while.

Though one day, there came a calm morning. Deep in Mexican hills within a little attic space, I sat. The dawn shone through broken windows and illuminated the floating dust in the air. Outside it was as quiet as I’d ever heard. No children or cars. No vendors or Spanish cat calling. The busy streets yielded their noise to make way for the noise of troubled minds.

I’ve succeeded in running away, I thought. Now what? Old mattress springs creaked under me as I shifted to look out my window at a beautiful, clear morning. I saw the blue sky through red eyes. Underweight and beaten, my legs were heavy from walking streets that would never bear my history.

I‘d run away from my family and myself, but were they gone? I cried. My hands shook. And for the first time in a long time I heard a new question: is it possible to disappear? For here I was thousands of miles away from my family, worlds away from myself — an eternity away from God — and yet I was sharing this morning with them still.

At this, I packed everything I owned and put it on my shoulders to leave the poor walls of a stranger’s attic. I walked alone through the streets and headed for the border. My tired legs carried me to a new life.

I was lost, but now I am found.

On a payphone by San Diego train tracks, I stood in the sun and dialed a number I’d known since I was four years old. It rang. I heard a weak hello from the middle of the Midwest.

“Dad?” I asked.

And my father’s voice came to me, a tortured sound and my name, “Holly? Oh my God, my God! His voice cracked, “You’re alive, oh my God.”

The man didn’t sound like my father. I’d never heard my father call out to God. Not ever. But now over the phone in his tenor, I heard every muscle of a man’s heart release blood into empty chambers waiting for my return. And I rested my head into the palm of my hand listening to my father come to understand that his daughter wasn’t dead.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Dad—I’m still here.”

But how do we come back from darkness? When we are small and alone in the vastness of our existence, when we abandon ourselves, who calls us home to salvation? Who knows us? There are times when we make an alter of doubt, but faith is nothing if not patient. It will preside over you anyway, waiting for your return. It shares every dark night, it shares every bright morning.

Friends, God grasps you like the sun on an aimless particle of dust because even in the absence of anyone who can know you, you will be uncovered and unearthed. Illuminated.

During this season I think about coming back. Returning.

I remember the Sunday morning I asked two fathers: how do I come home?

It's the day when both showed me the way.

Holly Norton is a writer.