Silver Cup Blessing

Today at 4:21 AM, earth’s north pole was tilted furthest away from the sun during its annual trek through space. For thousands of years people have been marking the winter solstice, noting (in the northern hemisphere) when the place of the sunrise and sunset reached its point furthest south before moving back toward the north and its place at the spring equinox. It was a time when people looked at the sky and (ironically in our scientific age) knew the motions of the heavens much better than we do. Unlike those living centuries ago, we keep our time in our pocket or on our wrists. The solstice was significant because it was a visible marker of being in the depths of winter but also a reminder that, even when all is darkest and coldest, spring is on the way. I live in Florida now, so this connection to the seasons is less pressing than it was when I lived in central Kansas or western Michigan. For people who did not have central heat or electricity, warmth and light were at a premium at...

  Photo Credit: ESA/Hubble “I wonder as I wander out under the sky how Jesus the Savior did come for to die for poor or’nry people like you and like i I wonder as I wander out under the sky.” It’s not a song that I hear a lot during Christmastime, but some years ago I had a meaningful musical experience singing it, and this year it has come back to me. The origins of the song are in a small bit of music that a composer (John Jacob Niles) heard in the late 1800s in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Its lyrics resonate with the earthiness and poverty that characterized that region of the country. Imagining Jesus as being born in the North Carolina backcountry, in a barn filled with animals, does not seem too far-fetched. He did not come as a pristine baby, brow shining with angelic light, to adorn the crafted mantels and beautiful trees of the upper-middle class. Instead, the song flattens the dirty straw at the foot of the manger to remind us that those who believe all ha...