Margaret's Bench -- December 2007
Happy birthday to the Courtyard—one year old
this month.
This time last year, I was pushing hard for an Advent launch,
imagining what fun it would be to write new prayers and
meditations for each season of the coming liturgical year, not
thinking much about how this new job might change my ordinary,
not-too-demanding work week.
 Then,
on the very morning that the Courtyard popped out and breathed
new life on the Web, I awakened to the rapid-fire sequence of
Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, each season
galloping along just ahead of the next, each calling out for
new material! new material! until June brought in the Green
Season and a chance to catch my breath.
It has been fun, if a little more intense than expected.
I remember wondering whether the practice of Lectio + Haiku
would sweep the nations, if floods of haiku submissions would
keep me up half the night reviewing new verses in response to
the current month’s scripture passage.
Well … not exactly … not yet, anyway. Instead, month by month, a
few new and old friends use this forum share bits of themselves
with anyone who passes through the Courtyard, cracking open a
window to the human heart. The pace of this continuing
conversation in new verse is slow enough for me to read, reread,
and appreciate each new haiku. Usually I can even reply to the
sender with my own thoughts about it. And then my friend—old or
new—might reply back, and the window cracks open a little wider.
I’m grateful for every exchange.
This month and last, the Lectio + Haiku page includes haiku
written by members of a group that gathered to practice haiku-writing in response to scripture together. I hope
to do more of that in the coming year.
Now Advent comes around again, beginning the cycle of the new
church year. And—Yikes!—there’s Christmas right around
the corner!
Here’s wishing the Courtyard a Happy Birthday … and every
mother’s child a Happy Birthday … and Jesus a Happy Birthday,
too.
-- Margaret
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