** A Most Blessed Christmas to all my dear readers **  -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts (all photos taken this week in downtown Seattle)

This song has been speaking to me in beautiful ways during the Advent season. I offer it to you as a gift for Christmas on this most holy night. Return in the morning for more images!

In the center of ourselves you place the power  of choosing. Forgive us the times we have given that power away, when we have sold  our birthright for that which does not satisfy. And so in your wisdom may our yes be truly yes and our no be truly no, that we may touch with dignity and love with integrity and know the freedom of our own choosing all our days. -Jan Richardson, from Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas ** For the season of Advent I am posting a reflection each Sunday on a theme from the

If you are here unfaithfully with us, you’re causing terrible damage. If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love, you’re helping people you don’t know and have never seen. Is what I say true? Say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe. -Rumi ** For the season of Advent I am posting a reflection each Sunday on a theme from the lectionary readings and then during the week offering a poem each day to highlight that theme — see this past Sunday here **

The Road Here is the road: the light comes and goes then returns again. Be gentle with your fellow travelers as they move through the world of stone and stars whirling with you yet every one alone. The road waits. Do not ask questions but when it invites you to dance at daybreak, say yes. Each step is the journey; a single note the song. -Arlene Gay Levine, from Bless the Day: Prayers and Poems to Nurture Your Soul ** For the season of Advent I am posting a reflection each Sunday on a theme from the lectionary readings and

O night of admiration, full of choirs, O night of deepest praise, And darkness full of sweet delight! -Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours ** For the season of Advent I am posting a reflection each Sunday on a theme from the lectionary readings and then during the week offering a poem each day to highlight that theme — see this past Sunday here **