December: A CinemaDivina Prayer Offering

Abbey of the Arts is thrilled to offer another beautiful CinemaDivina meditation for this month of December.   Marilyn Freeman is a fellow pilgrim on the Benedictine path and she offers this videos as a way of inviting us to pray visually through the medium of film.

(You can read her description of it here).

Give yourself the gift of a holy pause for just three minutes right now.  Pour some tea, close the door, and turn off any distractions.  Breathe deeply, put your hand on your heart, and give yourself over to three minutes of reflection and see if you can welcome in the stillness that December offers us.

Then play the meditation:

December on Vimeo

After being with the film, take three long and slow deep breaths, seeing if you can make some inner space for what is stirring in your heart.  As in the practice of lectio divina, see if there is a word, phrase, or image shimmering for you and welcome it in.

December
~ the literary text ~

December has a kind of stillness and silence
Even with the holiday plans and presents and parties
The deepest joy gets mixed with longing
In December

And there’s a kind of stillness and silence
the poet calls the moment of possibilities
the mystic calls the experience of God
the apostle calls Emmanuel
In December

I remember my mother, 91 years old on her last Christmas it was the first Christmas I didn’t tell her I loved her, she wasn’t feeling well and went to sleep early, and I waited to long to call.

December has a kind of stillness a kind of silence

This December I want to eat blueberry pie with Keith and Debe and talk about baseball and weddings and celebrate the fact that Keith made it through that heart attack

I want to text Kelli every day this December and tell her she’s gonna make a great teacher, I want to call Annalea just to tell her I love her, and Kenny too, and Tomm and Patt and everyone.

This December I cant wait to see Stephanie and Lenny in Pennsylvania, to have our Lenny moments, holding hands, the two of them and me and Anne, in gratitude, knowing that love like this really is ineffable.

December has a kind of stillness and silence
Even with the holiday plans and presents and parties
The deepest joy gets mixed with longing
In December

There’s a kind of stillness and silence
the poet calls the moment of possibilities
the mystic calls the experience of God
the apostle calls Emmanuel

In December I’m reminded of Matthew and the gospel verses about the virgin who would conceive and bear a son and his name would be Emmanuel and he would save us all. Emmanuel. The Lord is with us.

In December I love the kind of stillness and silence

the poet calls the moment of possibilities
the mystic calls the experience of God
the apostle calls Emmanuel.
In December

There’s a kind of stillness and silence.

–By Marilyn Freeman, 2010