our every encounter leads someone toward beatitude or away from it

This afternoon
as flakes of powder
buried the Nativity scene
in the front yard
I shoveled
a deep canyon, white
to the road.

Even while nights stretch and lengthen, joy invades the darkness like a gathering storm of hope: “Gaude!” “Rejoice!”

It’s the memorial of St. John of the Cross, one of my favorite spiritual writers of all time. I’ve created a multimedia retreat with Saint John of the Cross — and his Sayings of Light and Love.

A branch wields its way toward the grey haze of an icy sky, stripped of its leaves, with a golden pile of garments at its base, shriveling dry.