Deep and crisp and even.

Greetings from the rather icy City of Edinburgh (sharing a climate today with Vladivostok!).  Snow has fallen, the bypass is shut, the shift is over, I have a nice cuppa in my hand and really wonder if I can be bothered going to an Advent Carol service?  My stout boots are doing sterling service and the brand new, furry, Red Army surplus ushanka is keeping my ears nicely warm.  The black rabbit fur will go nicely with a cassock and cloak - the Red Star with hammer and sickle making a pleasant change from a WWJD badge!

Any how to mark the season here are some words on which to meditate:

Drop down, ye heavens, from above, 

And let the skies pour down righteousness. 

Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, 

Neither remember iniquity for ever; 

Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Sion is a wilderness,

Jerusalem a desolation: 

Our holy and our beautiful house, 

Where our fathers praised thee.

We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing, 

And we all do fade as a leaf:

And our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away; 

Thou hast hid thy face from us: 

And hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. 

Behold, O Lord, the affliction of thy people. 

And send forth Him who is to come: 

Send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth, 

From Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion: 

That He may take away the yoke of our captivity. 

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, 

And my servant whom I have chosen; 

That ye may know me and believe me: 

I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour: 

And there is none that can deliver out of my hand. 

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people; My salvation shall not tarry:

I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions:

Fear not, for I will save thee: For I am the Lord thy God,

the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.