Backward Mutters

  • Woman, Behold

    Woman, Behold

    The Lectionary reading for the fourth Sunday of Epiphany comes from John 2 when Jesus and his disciples attend the wedding in Cana of Galilee. The passage begins, “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited…

  • Epiphany on the Jordan

    Epiphany on the Jordan

    Yesterday was the first Sunday in Epiphany. The usual text for the first Sunday in Epiphany is Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. You’ll recall that John baptized with water but announced the coming of One who would baptize with fire and Spirit. When Jesus comes…

  • Epiphany’s Snowing

    Epiphany’s Snowing

    Here’s a sonnet written this morning while watching the snow fall and meditating on the Magi’s visit to the Christ child which is remembered on Epiphany. It was a lovely morning. I have been taken with T.S. Elliot’s “Journey of the Magi” which you may read here, and you’ll be able…

  • Epiphany

    For Epiphany I am re-posting a sonnet based upon a devotional by Elisabeth Elliot in her book, A Lamp Unto My Feet. My friend, Mark Z., shared this with me once when I was discouraged about my own circumstances. The passage from which the devotional is based in John 1:29.…

  • Happy New Year!

    Happy New Year!

    Bells are sounding: tinkling and ringing ‘Neath a New Year’s starry sky twinkling The Stellar Host to my fears winking Resounds in joyous, hopeful tingling. (photo: Hazel Kuehn)