Let earth and heaven combine - A Christmas/New Year Meditation

Let earth and heaven combine - A Christmas/New Year Meditation -

Use these words to introduce the hymn or as part of a time of contemplation as Christmas becomes 'Christmas past' and we try to make sense of it as the year turns.

Extract:

Let earth and heaven combine - A Christmas/New Year Meditation - by Andrew Pratt from Inextinguishable Blaze, (Andrew Pratt, Inspire) available from the author or Twelve Baskets.

The baubles and decorations will be put away. And I wonder what you'll do with the tree if you've had one? Into the New Year we go. Christmas will be 'Christmas past', once again.
And for Christians this is a time of trying to make sense of the baby born in a stable. A celebration of the coming of wise men, of kings, to a humble dwelling. What do we make of it all?

My recollection over the years is of Epiphany, this season, being lost in New Year sales, and getting back to work. Then, at a religious level it's the trumpeting of the media who have feasted on a bishop who has had the courage to voice his doubts about the virgin birth.
Amid all this I have the echo at the back of my mind of a phrase from a hymn, 'Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man'. As a writer am I allowed to envy Wesley's way with words, the economy of his language?

continues ...

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)

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