P&S Dec 2021 GIFT

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Elrena Evans

Happy December!

The theme for this month’s issue of Paper&String is celebration.

Last year, in December, I chose longing as our theme… and I do think my bent is sometimes more toward Advent than toward Christmas.

I think it feels like a necessary corollary to what often seems like our culture’s completely ignoring the longing, the waiting, the preparation… and rushing straight to the tinsel and glitter.

But. There is a time and a place for celebration, yes? (And also, I love glitter.) So for this issue, I wanted celebration to be our theme. Let’s celebrate! Emmanuel, God with us, is here. (“Unto me!” Imogene yelled back.

“Not them, me! I’m the one that had the baby!”)

(And if you got that reference, you just made my day.)

Celebrate the Child who is the Light Now the darkness is over No more wandering in the night Celebrate the Child who is the Light!

- Michael Card

This month, we bring you the memories of a celebration that took place in the Black Barn, mere months before Covid shut our world down. We bring you celebrations in stories and pictures and songs, in delicious recipes and poems and promise. For as Gladys yelled for all the world to hear, “Hey! Unto you a child is born!”

Let us celebrate.

Celebrate the Light

W

hen Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” - John 8:12 December 21st, 2019. On the darkest day of the year, we gather in the Black Barn to celebrate the coming light, our one true Light.

An Invitation Watching our children walk an Advent Spiral was one of our favorite holiday traditions during the years we were a part of a small Waldorf school in Chicago.

We are excited to bring this tradition to the Black Barn, and to share it with you.

On the longest night of the year, we will enter a peaceful and darkened barn. One at a time, the children will walk the spiral path of evergreen boughs placed on the floor. Carrying an unlit

candle, and assisted by an adult or teen helper if necessary, each child will light their candle from a central “Christ candle” until the barn is filled with light.

A Meditation The Black Barn feels warm and full tonight, filled with candlelight, wrapped in starlight.

My children are walking an evergreen spiral,

lighting candles, which they then place in hollowed-out apples alongside a crèche. Slowly, slowly, the barn fills with light.

My youngest child slides off my lap to walk the spiral, his eyes fixed on the light at the center.

He takes a step, hesitates, and then—without taking his eyes off the light—he reaches his hand out to me. He doesn’t check to see if I am there; he knows I am. And he simply reaches out his hand.

So hand in hand, we walk the spiral together. Hand in hand, we tip his candle toward the Christ candle.

Hand in hand, we celebrate the Light.

A Reflection A winter solstice celebration, a gathering in a place that felt magical, the weight and the glory of Christmas tangling with faded memories of pagan rituals. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought I could walk out into the cold night air and turn a corner, only to find one of the beloved Flower Fairies from my mom’s old

books waiting there, waiting to bless me with fairy dust.

After we got home, my soul was leaping, rejoicing, even. I could still feel fairy dust in the air. Even in the darkest, coldest nights of wintery Advent, the promise of Christmas hangs in every breath and twinkles like starlight, not unlike the star that first lit the way so many years ago.

Merry Christmas from all of us at the Black Barn!

To download this printable page, click here!

And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

- Matthew 2:11

State of Terror

by Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton

Where You Can Find It: Everywhere books are sold Rating: PG What You Need To Know: This might tide you over until next year’s new Inspector Gamache novel, if you are a Louise Penny / Three Pines fan. Or it might make the wait worse. But, if you’ve never heard of either, this will at least be a keep-you-up-toolate-but-you-won’t-regret-it holiday break thriller.

If someone in your family loves action mystery reads with some really fabulous strong women leads, this would make a gripping gift.

I was skeptical at first that I could connect with a novel about DC Beltway political intrigue from an author who is beloved for her cozy Quebec village mysteries. But, Louise Penny has

a gift for making the people the center of the story, and not whatever MacGuffin they happen to be chasing down. And the very heart of this book is the lifelong friendship between two polar opposite women, both over the age “A year ago the idea of of 50, who actually writing it seemed aren’t afraid so daunting. Terrifying. I to show up as themselves. was so scared and deeply

regretted agreeing to do it.”

Personally, I - Louise Penny on the process of knew nothing writing something in a brand-new about Hillary genre for a new audience.

Rodham Clinton’s childhood friend, Betsy, whom one of the book’s characters is named after, and even less about the friendship between Hillary and Louise. But I went down a rabbit trail about both after I was done reading this novel. Stories that write

female friendship without cattiness or cliché are so rare, that this was a refreshing take on what friendship that’s actually acquired some pounds and wrinkles can look like. Especially when dropped into a plotline that we’ve seen in countless Tom Cruise movies. I liked seeing women my age and older navigating through this plot for a change.

And as someone who’s lived most of her life in or around DC, I enjoyed the peeks behind doors no tourist gets to visit. Those scenes had weight, and no matter how you might feel about Hillary’s politics, there’s no denying she’s had a front row seat to rooms and tables few women have before. And with Louise as the storyteller, creating fiction likely just as strange as some of the truth walking the cherry blossom lined streets of DC, their team effort paid off far more effectively than I anticipated.

With multiple characters and plot lines intersecting from the opening pages, it was both jarring compared to the slow burn of an

Inspector Gamache novel as well as effective at pulling the reader in and kicking off a pageturner that my dad said he couldn’t put down after glancing through just a few pages of my copy after it arrived.

This was a thriller that was entertaining, exaggerated and also pretty heavy handed about the moral of its story. It will likely surprise no one that there is an inherent bias baked into the plot that teetered on the edge of (and many will say crashed right through) the suspension of disbelief. For me, though, it was the mashup of Penny’s Three Pines and Hillary’s DC that I found the most jarring. Sure, I was hoping for a Gamache spotting but when it happened, I immediately wished it hadn’t. It was like a crossover between a political cartoon strip and a BBC detective show. It didn’t work for me. And detracted from both, equally.

But, more than the book itself, it was what Penny wrote in the acknowledgements and then in her own newsletter about the experience of writing the book that stuck with me. She was frank about her own state of terror about writing in this genre, with the eyes of the world watching, and her own sense of isolation and loneliness writing through a Covid year.

Getting to watch an artist do something outside of their comfort zone will never fail to inspire me.

All that said, by the time I closed the book, I felt partially satisfied. Sure, it was a good snack between meals at Three Pines, but didn’t nourish me in the same way. Nor did I expect it to. I’m looking forward to another helping of what Louise Penny does best next August.

Until then, this was an early gift from a friend that didn’t disappoint, and that I’d recommend for the mystery-lover on your own list this year.

with ANNA GRIST

Greeting Winter

T

here are only so many ways I can bring snow into the conversation, but given we have it eight months of the year, it’s slightly necessary. What is a Canadian hiker’s blog without snow? This year we’ve had a bit of a reprieve, as we did NOT have three inches of snow for the kids’ first day of school, and while it IS snowing at this exact moment, we

will NOT have over a foot this weekend for our Thanksgiving. (Last year was a different story, but it was 2020 so no one was shocked because, well, 2020.)

By December we will be well into our yearly blanket of perpetual snow globe existence, and I will be running and walking more indoors on

my treadmill than outside. Winter is also when I tend to retreat, for better and worse, into my head. Like Lucy in Narnia, I head through the fur coats out of the real world into my snowy mind and find all the fauns and lions there waiting. My writing picks up, my body sits down. I trade my outdoorsiness for more books and tea and time alone.

It seems hard to believe we are heading into the second winter of being held at Covid-point.

The pandemic has revealed as many problems and inequalities as it has caused, and I think some of our angst occurs when we cannot tell the difference.

We rant and rave against a certain type of fear or reaction, without seeing the very human reasons for those reactions, even if they are harmful or seemingly out of touch with reality.

Very early into our first dance with lockdowns and restrictions, I realized that my responses to many of the new situations and questions I faced were not in fact effective or realistic, and it was God gently leading me to seek out therapy for my mental health and past traumas that were increasing my flight, fight or fawn responses to stress or new situations and fears.

In essence, I have Covid to thank for my journey into better mental health. It revealed things I’d just been enduring or ignoring. I can look now and see how those around me are reacting and can have compassion for them, as they are wrestling not with external information as much as their brain trying to survive and pivot while wading through things in their past that have created traps that keep them bound into harmful and illogical responses.

I still tend toward these impulses, but I’m aware enough to catch myself, and let those responses have a voice in the backseat without being behind the steering wheel. I can take my time and consider the sources and the big picture before reacting emotionally.

Because of my pivot into therapy, when this seasonal retreat happens, I can avoid getting stuck in circular stress thoughts and instead meet my internal questions with a calm and brave heart. I can retreat from the cold indoors to my treadmill or at the very least to my myriad layers of outerwear, knowing it is only a season, while also still retreating into more of a contemplative mental posture with the same hope. This is not a season just to be endured, but that can also enrich, and I will embrace this rhythm knowing God has specific work for it to do that the warm summer days cannot accomplish in me.

The long, dusky days of cold and ice seem friendlier for this realization, and I greet them then as a dear soul that knows me well.

Playlist: Celebration

By Elrena Evans

C

elebrate! Here is a collection of songs to celebrate the miracle of the Light come into the world...

Emmanuel, God with us.

Click here to enjoy the Spotify playlist!

Excerpts: Dimming the Day

by Jennifer Grant

J

ennifer Grant is an author and editor who has written six books for adults, including the recently released Dimming the Day: Evening Meditations for Quiet Wonder.

She also is an awardwinning writer of children’s literature.

Her first picture book, Maybe God Is Like That Too, won multiple awards for excellence in children’s literature.

In 2022, her book Sing, Wrestle, Spin (a book on prayer for children) will be released. She is the mother of four young adult children and lives with her husband of 33 years and rescue dog Scarlett in Chicago. Learn more at jennifergrant.com.

From “Murmuration”

Click on the video images or here and here to view readings from Jennifer’s book

From “Kadupul”

A Merry Christmas from Tonya Salomons

I

had an epic Christmas meltdown in a mall once. A full-on, toddler-like temper tantrum, except I was 40. I had pushed myself to my absolute limit with preparations and shopping.

I was on my way to meet my husband Brian and head to the car, having declared, “Enough already, Tonya!” Except it wasn’t, because wouldn’t that one more thing be perfect for so-and-so on my list. And there I was in a department store, my fingers literally turning blue because of the weight of the shopping bags in my hands, weeping over the fact that I could not extricate a shopping cart to relieve my weariness.

This is how my husband found me, yanking mercilessly on the cart with tears streaming down my face. I had come undone. In that quiet way that is him, he simply reached out his hands, and I relinquished my grip on the

bags... and with it the last of my resolve to just keep going.

With gentleness and concern he looked me in the eye and said, “Come on, let’s go home.”

No judgement, no admonishment, just care and love and the recognition that I needed someone else to tell me I could stop. He steered me toward the car, plunked the bags in the trunk, opened my door,

settled me in the passenger seat and reached around my sobbing frame to fasten my seatbelt. Once home, he squirreled the parcels away from prying eyes, poured me a glass of wine, and sat beside me on the couch so I could put my feet in his lap.

And in between sips of wine and tears I told him how I thought I couldn’t possibly have enough things to be ready for the holidays. To his absolute credit he did not spare a glance at the Christmas that had exploded all through the living room. I was being too hard on myself and needed a minute to remember.

My sister once said, “Christmas doesn’t merry itself, you know.” I laughed at the truth of it and yet at the time I could not understand or comprehend a Christmas that was any other way than frantic.

The merry can be slow. The merry can be an unfolding rather than a frenetic pace. The merry can look like dancing in His brilliance.

The merry is knowing even in the darkest moments that His glory is unchanging. The merry is knowing in the core of our beings the joy of thanksgiving and praise. The merry is in the waiting, always waiting, with hope.

When I find myself on the front end of a holiday tailspin I take myself back to blue fingers, stubborn shopping carts and a husband who knew when to quit. That disastrous day at the mall was a

watershed moment as I learned to shift my gaze from Christmas to Christ.

One of the ways I found to keep things merry was to change the way we celebrated with food. More time with family, less time in the kitchen. I hope you enjoy this recipe that can be prepared the day before and popped in the oven for Christmas morning brunch.

Download the recipe as a letter-size page or a recipe card, just click on the images below!

Malva Pudding from Lisa-Jo Baker

M

alva Pudding is a South African staple of the Christmas and holiday season. From the Afrikaans word for “marshmallow,” I’ve always thought of it like molten lava, rhymes with malva. This is an ooey gooey, grownup take on all things

comfort food and custard. It tastes just like my childhood, and I confess, I’ve never once made it from scratch. This is what the aunties all bring to the church potluck or grandma cooks for Christmas.

It’s what I would pick up from the store here when I feel homesick, if I could.

Download the recipe as a letter-size page or a recipe card, just click on the images below!

with CHRISTIE PURIFOY

Bringing in the Greens

W

hen I was a child, Christmas arrived in a box we brought down from the attic on the day after Thanksgiving. My sisters and I would unpack the box with our mother, and within an hour our house would have shifted from ordinary to special, from nice enough to beautiful. And beauty—even then—was the song of my heart.

I still keep a beautiful Christmas stored in cardboard boxes and plastic bins. There are

the nativity figures who make their home in a stable made by my husband from old wood he found in our barn. There are the handmade ornaments I bought for each child at Chicago’s Christkindlmarket. There are the small, brass angels who spin and ring their bells from the heat of four white candles. Beautiful things can be purchased from shops and from makers and kept, year after year, in boxes with fading labels.

But what if I’m sick of shopping? What if I’ve run out of room for more boxes? Perhaps the answer is to unwrap an old tradition called bringing in the greens.

Maybe you’ve heard that phrase before. Maybe you’re wondering if “greens” are some other version of the holiday “blues.” Something viral, perhaps? Sounds unpleasant. But remember, dear reader, this is a gardening column, and “greens” are just what my readers might expect: green things, living things, that grow out of doors, like pine and cedar, holly and ivy, even a coastal palm frond.

Bringing in the greens is an old Christmas tradition with its roots in all kinds of ancient observances that embraced a sacred sense of the seasons. When we bring in the greens, we go outside and do quite literally that—we gather branches and swags of fresh, resinous, scented evergreen, and we bring the outside in.

Evergreens of all sorts are special this time of year because they remind us of the persistence of life even during dark winter seasons.

They symbolize eternal life. And they are a traditional part of many Advent and Christmas celebrations, from wreaths to garlands to trees in homes and in churches.

I have made bringing in the greens a regular part of my personal preparation for Christmas. I love the walk outside in frosty air as I hunt for anything still green enough to bring inside.

If it has red berries, all the better. I have even brought home fresh holly from the local farm market in order to drop sprigs in small bud vases I can tuck into all corners of the house.

On the surface, real evergreens don’t seem as “everlasting” as faux. And their realness isn’t always comfortable or convenient. Yes, they smell like heaven, but they sometimes make us sneeze. They can prick us with their spines or thorns. They dry out quickly and must be misted with water or kept in a vase. They force us to pay careful attention to the days. Bring in the greens too soon, and they will not last till Twelfth Night.

But real greens are never packed up into boxes.

They are never stored away in dusty attics or basements. Real Christmas greens are tossed back outside where they are transformed into soil that will one day feed spring flowers.

What could be more everlasting than that?

The Practice of Advent Wondering

by Troy Cady

Hope, peace, joy, and love are perennial qualities: we need them in every season of every year of our lives. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, it is particularly apt to ground ourselves in these qualities once again because they are reflected in the key figures surrounding Jesus’ birth. In this season, we remember the hope of the prophets, the trustfilled peace of Mary and Joseph, the joy of the shepherds, and the love of the magi…all because of the humility of the Christ.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have referred to this time of year as Advent. Simply put, the word “Advent” means “coming.” During Advent, we are awaiting the second coming of Jesus and honoring his first coming at the same time.

Because it is a season of waiting, it is a season of longing. Because it is a time that integrates the past, present, and future, it is a time of great mystery. And, because it is a time of great mystery, it is a good time for wonder….

Click here or on image above to watch Troy’s video

Click to download the accompanying PDF which includes:

• Practice Preparation & Materials • An Invitation to Practice

Tell me a story of celebration...

Celebration seems so much more rebellious after the past two years (oh heck no, how are we in YEARS of Covidtide? By the Regencyera décolletage of Jane Austen, I am AGHAST) of soldiering onwards through the breach of pandemic life. I’ve taken to recognizing and celebrating the internal and unseen in more ways over the last year. I’m celebrating having hard conversations with my therapist with naps. I’m celebrating our kids being

instinctively grateful and communicating their gratitude with praise and acknowledgement.

Honestly, in the midst of pandemic uncertainty, I’m celebrating us getting through a week of school without anyone getting the sniffles, I’m celebrating being able to face decisions without a panic attack. I’ve learned to look around and see what’s been taken for granted and not just be grateful but be JUBILANT about those things, while also holding them lightly knowing God has a timing and purpose for each, and some won’t last.

The Christmas I had pneumonia ended up being one of our favorite family Christmas memories. We had four children at the time, ages 8, 6, 3, and 1, and I was trying, through my sickness, to press on with the Christmas traditions… but I just couldn’t. We got the lights on the tree, and then that was it.

I remember lying on the couch, looking at the tree, and thinking, maybe the kids could just make ornaments this year? Maybe instead of getting out all the breakable glass ornaments

(and fencing off the tree) we could decorate with Lego ornaments, and hand-drawn ornaments, and whatever they can find and make themselves.

The kids loved this idea. And I must have gone to bed, because the next thing I remember is walking into the living room later… to see the tree, covered from tip to toe, in tissues and baby wipes.

“You said decorate the tree!” my kids enthused.

And decorate the tree they had, in some of the tangible items that felt like they defined our lives at the moment: tissues and baby wipes.

“Oh, we have to clean this up,” I started to say… but then… do we? Maybe we can just have a tree covered in tissues and wipes this year. What a glorious, messy, real celebration.

The Team!

Christie & Jonathan Purifoy

live at the old farmhouse in Pennsylvania called Maplehurst and built the Black Barn. Christie earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago before trading the classroom for a picket-fenced garden and an old writing desk. Now she writes books and raises kids and chickens and tends the trees that gave Maplehurst its name.

Lisa-Jo Baker is a

third culture kid, former attorney, reader, writer, and storyteller. Every Wednesday on the Out of the Ordinary Podcast she and Christie explore the surprising ways that cultivating ordinary life leads to extraordinary stories. She is endlessly fascinated by people and how loud her children are.

Elrena Evans first had the dream of

sending you a care package from the Black Barn. She’s a writer, editor, and dancer, a mother of five, an ally and an advocate. A new Paper&String care package every month is her gift from us to you.

Allison Sheeler Duncan studied English

and theology at Eastern University and is now a writer and editor at a university in southeastern Pennsylvania. She enjoys growing flowers and heirloom tomatoes, watching superhero movies, and trying new recipes.

Anna Grist is the western Canadian in our

midst, working on Paper&String from the Rockies near Calgary. She creates all the design and layout and contributes a few illustrations and snippets of writing as well as laughter and well-timed GIFs. She’s a wife and mother to two human children, as well as twins Quill & Ink (pictured).

Amy Knorr is an educator, speaker and

writer who loves to create contemplative spaces in real life and online. She is in a Nonprofit and Spiritual Formation graduate program with a spiritual direction certification.

Amy has shared a nomadic married life with her husband, Dan, for 21 years. She is mom to two girls growing tall and a son she will hold again someday. She enjoys a good laugh, a quiet moment, a furry doggy face, a challenging trail and a cup of hot tea.

Anna Kocher is an artist living and working

in the greater Philadelphia area. She’s an art teacher, a painter, and mother of three. When she’s not teaching, painting, or parenting she can be found reading, tea in hand and Ella Fitzgerald on the record player. She lives in a creaky old house with her husband, her kids, her dog, Mystic, and Edmund the cat.

Tonya Salomons

lives with her husband in Canada’s largest city.

During the day, she works as a registered social worker, but at night and on the weekends the kitchen is where she finds the space to recharge and finds her joy, feeding not only the body but the soul. She admits to reading cookbooks like they are novels while sipping copious cups of coffee and eating chocolate chip cookies.

by Elrena Evans

Celebrate!

The night is over.

The morning sun wakes the earth with gentle light.

Celebrate!

The broken is restored.

The sweet succor of comfort wraps and holds us.

Celebrate!

The lost is found.

All the wandering has bent to bring us home.

Celebrate!

The fear has ended.

The darkness has, at last, been turned to light.

Celebrate!

Jesus, Emmanuel, is here.

God is with us.

Amen.

Click here to download a printable version of the prayer

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