Writing Prompt 31

Write about a signficant birth in your life--whether it be a baby, a career, an insight. How was or wasn't this birth what you expected?

A Christmas Blessing

Our Child is Born

For unto us this love is born
Unto us this grace is given
This infant head will rest
upon our shoulders
And we will call this child
Wonderful, Darling One
Light of God
Everlasting Joy
This precious life

Based on Isaiah 9:6-7


In the midst of darkness, in the midst of winter, in the midst of failing health and personal struggles, love is waiting to be born into our lives. God issues the invitation moment by moment. May we all have the courage to let go of the savior we expected and embrace the unexpected unlikely gift God offers us instead.

Unto us love is born!

Writing Prompt 30

Write your own version of The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-56).
Or write why your soul sings.

My Soul Sings

A Contemporary Magnificat
based on Luke 1:46-56


From deep inside my soul I sing
praise to my maker.
God is amazing beyond belief
the Heart of Being has held
my heart in hand.
I’m just a girl trying to live
a God worthy life
and from the crowd
I was noticed, chosen, claimed.

When people look back on my life
they won’t be able to help seeing
blessing and the great things
the Mighty One has done.
I hold up God’s name, wave
it like a flag and walk
under the banner of the Holy
in a parade of wondrous works.

God rains compassion
quenching the thirst of those who follow
as far back as our earliest kin.
I-Am-Who-I-Am was there
flexing divine muscle
humbling the proud who thought
they had it all.

God knocks the powerful off their thrones
drives them to their knees
and lifts the trampled to their feet.
The Almighty fills the baskets
of the hungry with delights
and says to those already satiated
“You have enough.”

God is faithful never veering from the promise
made to our father Abraham
and all who sprung from him.
God is with us forever.




My Soul Sings

Perhaps this is what it means to say my soul sings. Saying yes to God, saying yes to the creative spirit that longs to dwell within us and birth something new into our lives. Like Mary, we can sing out a love song to God recognizing God’s wondrous work and our hope for a world open and attuned to divine power that topples traditional power structures and set all of us free to experience new life in unconditional love.

My soul sings with the privilege of being called by name by the Holy One. My soul sings because I, who was an atheist, a Christian hater, a scoffer and skeptic, have been claimed and loved by God.

If God can do that, if God can turn my life around, fill me with hope from the inside out and let me work out the details of my faith, beliefs and salvation later, then what else is God capable of?

My souls sings. I believe in the power of God’s love to work miracles. My soul sings and I want to turn my life and this world into a never-ending refrain of praise. My soul sings. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I believe in all encompassing unfathomable love.

That love is God and Love will save us. Love will bring about the fervent desires of our hearts for justice and for peace. Some day, some way, it will happen. This is the hope we have inherited. This is the hope that set Mary’s soul to singing. This is the hope we proclaim now and forevermore.

Writing Prompt 29

Do you know someone who is preparing the way of the Lord? It could even be you.
Write your own version of Isaiah's words (Isaiah 40:40:3-5), or those of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-12) about this servant.

Prepare the Way of the Lord

This poem was originally written for Rev. Victoria Schlintz. She began her ministry at Atwater United Methodist Church just as she was diagnosed with ALS. Under her leadership, the church is thriving. Equipped this year with a special van, nothing is stopping Victoria in preparing the way of the Lord.

May each of us be as brave and faithful in saying, "Here I am, Lord, send me."


Prepare the Way of the Lord

There’s a voice in the valley
calling through the wilderness
“Prepare the Way of the Lord”
and the people are listening.

She says, “I am not the one
you are seeking but I know him.”
And they see in her life and suffering
that God’s grace is always present
is always enough that they too
can be blessed no matter what.

“Prepare the Way of the Lord.”
It is the voice of our sister
calling in the wilderness
and we heed her words.

Prepare the Way of the Lord’s servant
Make her paths straight
and her rough ways smooth
Fill the valleys and level her mountains
And together we will see
the salvation of our God.