A Widening Light…

A Widening Light: Poems of the Incarnation, edited by Luci Shaw,  is one of my favorite collections of poetry, and the one I hold close during Advent. This is my favorite poem of the collection, penned by Madeleine L’Engle:

 

After annunciation

This is the irrational season

When love blooms bright and wild.

Had Mary been filled with reason

There’d have been no room for the child.

 

I loved these words from the first reading, when I was young and single and without any desire for a child. The image of love blooming in irrational soil, the season of Advent, captivated me. And then we adopted my daughter – and the meaning blossomed beyond my wildest dreams.

I recently wrote this small reflection on the poem for SheLoves Magazine:

This poem speaks of Mary’s child, but also my own. My daughter, when I first met her in Burundi one sweaty summer day, carried the heavy diagnosis of AIDS with every breath. The decision to bring her home seemed utterly irrational. Had I leaned on good reason… there’d have been no room for her in my heart, maybe no room for her anywhere else, either. I thank God love does bloom bright and wild, that love creates room where logic doubts there’s enough. Sometimes a poem is both biblical and autobiographical…this is one.

 

This month the women of SheLoves are reading through A Widening Light together. We are also sharing our own reflections along the way. Please consider joining us… there is a link-up provided so that you can can share in the glow of Advent with us.

Want to read more? Get new posts delivered straight to your inbox:

One thought on “A Widening Light…”

  1. sandy hay
     ·  Reply

    I remember the first time I read Madeleine’s poem. It stopped me cold. Still does.How often do we reason away God? Scary thought.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

*



All content on this site is copyrighted by Kelley Nikondeha. Please do not copy work without permission. You are welcome to quote or reference my blog in your article, but please make sure you link back to the original post. Please do not post an article in full without permission, because that is a violation of intellectual property. (My African friends have a different sense of this, but being American, I can tell you it does matter to me!)

All writing on this site represents my own journey, my own wrestling, my own epiphanies. While I work with Communities of Hope, ideas shared here do not necessarily represent this organization.