Comfort Ye

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,

saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,

and cry unto her,

that her warfare is accomplished,

that her iniquity is pardoned.

- Isaiah 40:1,2

“Comfort ye.” That is the first word and the best. If we will receive that word in the depths of our being, we can face anything.

Ajigasawa’s Russian Club

It snowed again last night and this time the snow didn’t melt. Winter is coming on fast now – its dark before supper and the roads are often icy. So on Monday night Russian Club met for the last time until the spring.

We chatted about this and that as we cooked and ate and it was a pleasant evening on the whole. But then, as we sat eating our piroshky together, I asked the “wrong question.”

“Her life is all suffering and sorrow,” said one member of his daughter. And as he elaborated it seemed to me that his own life sounded like a lot of suffering and sorrow.

At home later that evening, our Advent meditation on the beautiful solo “Comfort Ye” from Isaiah 40 seemed so appropriate to the conversation of the day.

Comfort ye - what a good word to the human heart from the heart of God. That first word is the best word. To know that the Creator is also the comforter is to have peace in the center.

- Joseph E. McCabe