Advent

Here’s the top of a young Norfolk Island pine in Fremantle. The branches start out pointing up in a V-shape, and as the tree matures they grow longer and are borne down by their weight to a near perfect perpendicular; the same thing happens with the distinctive lanyard-like needles on each branch. Glorious trees these are; I’m sure I’ll be posting more pictures of them (with, no without apologies to my nature-phobic friend).

We’re almost halfway through Advent, but here (needless to say) the days aren’t getting shorter or darker. In recent years I’ve come quite to enjoy the sense of deepening gloom of New York winters, to be turned around by the gorgeous trio “Schweig, er ist schon wirklich da” in Bach’s Christmas oratorio (which I like in part because it almost fondly recalls the pleasures, and even the comforts, of waiting). In a book called The Spirit of the Liturgy (a title cribbed from Romano Guardini), Joseph Ratzinger, before became Pope Benedict, wrote very interestingly about the ways in which the Christian liturgical year could embrace different climes and seasons, and even should do so, to make things seem more truly connected to people’s lived experiences, and also to discover new meanings in the feasts themselves. The example I remember involved the profound new resonances of an Easter season which coincided with harvest rather than planting, but nothing to help with the runup to a Christmas barbecue in the blazing heat. Any suggestions?

And speaking of blazing heat, bush fires have destroyed several homes in Tasmania, and the fires in Victoria have joined forces to make a 240km firefront. Is this being reported elsewhere?