Thursday, December 8, 2022
- Reflection by Nathan Frambach
Colossians 3:12-17
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord[f] has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ[g] rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ[h] dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.[i] 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
I spent the better part of two (2) days before the Thanksgiving holiday this year with my brother clearing brush and deadfall in a stand of trees adjacent to my mother’s house where she lives outside of Charlotte, NC. It was hard work, and hot for mid-November, but at the same time, strangely peaceful. The sound of saw and axe and scythe and an occasional outburst from one of the squirrels and birds nearby. We came across a hollowed out log and discovered the nest of a wood duck, so we worked around it and let it rest. It brought to mind the poem by Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things.” We sat on a log and sipped some coffee with a bite and read the poem together. We rested, in grace. And so, to that end, I commend to you our farmer poet, Wendell Berry:
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
In whatever community you reside this Advent and Christmas season—whether city, town, village, hamlet, or forest blind—keeping watch with the shepherds and preparing to join the heavenly host in singing praise and celebrating the birth of Jesus, the child of Bethlehem—rest, in grace; wait, in hope, for Joy.