Our candlelit gathering this year in the Brighthelm Gardens centred on Hope …reminded of the birth of Jesus and the blessing of advent. Thank you to everyone who came and helped light up the gardens, with the sound of carols and Christmas readings.
The “O” in Hope by Luci Shaw
Hope has this lovely vowel at its throat.
Think how we cry “Oh!” as the sun’s circle
clears the ridge above us on the hill.
O is the shape of a mouth singing, and of
a cherry as it lends its sweetness
to the tongue. “Oh!” say the open eyes at
unexpected beauty and then, “Wow!”
O is endless as a wedding ring, a round
pool, the shape of a drop’s widening on
the water’s surface. O is the center of love,
and O was in the invention of the wheel.
It multiplies in the zoo, doubles in a door
that opens, grows in the heart of a green wood,
in the moon, and in the endless looping
circuit of the planets. Mood carries it,
and books and holy fools, cotton, a useful tool
and knitting wool. I love the doubled O
in good and cosmos, and how O revolves,
solves, is in itself complete, unbroken,
a circle enclosing us, holding us all together,
every thing both in center and circumference
zeroing in on the Omega that finds
its ultimate center in the name of God.
This year our Christmas Collection was for the Brighton charity “The Hummingbird Project” – ‘a community standing together for the Rights and Protection of Young Refugees’, helping support refugees arriving in our city.
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and hope-filled Christmas.
