This reflection was written for the 2018 half-day retreat at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Christiansburg, Va. The Ann-Frances Chapter of the Daughters of the King holds this quiet day every Advent and Lent. The second meditation for the retreat, “The Stars Singing,” can be read here.
I have a friend who is an operatic soprano. A few years ago, one Christmas Eve in Memphis, Tennessee, 12 hours’ drive from where I was born and from where my parents and sister and niece and nephew gathered to celebrate Christmas without me, I stood in the side chapel of a darkened, candlelit church, listening to her sing “O Holy Night,” and I wept. That’s what her voice can do.