Winter Solstice

We our having a service to honor the Winter Solstice and the longest night. It is called "Tidings of Comfort."

On the shortest day of the year we will hold a special candlelight service; a time when we can, with others, acknowledge the “blue” feeling we may have at Christmas time, reflect upon the reasons for them, and then offer them to God.

This will be the final service honoring the via negativa. Join us at 7:00 p.m. The sanctuary will be open at 6 p.m. to allow for a time of reflection before the service.

Visit First Presbyterian of Elizabethton tonight and on Christmas Eve at ten p.m.

Thanks to Nancy Barrigar for alerting me to this beautiful poem by Rebecca Parker.

Winter Solstice

Perhaps
for a moment
the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant, in the stillness,
the chiming of the celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness, and then
gracefully
tilts.
Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.
We are not alone.
In the universe there moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter earth's axis
toward love.
In the immense darkness
everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars,
cradled in a swaying embrace,
rocked by the holy night,
babes of the universe.
Let this be the time
we wake to life,
like spring wakes, in the moment
of winter solstice.