Advent Begins this Sunday, December 3rd!
If you’re looking for a poetic, daily journey through Advent—steeped in both biblical truth and a passionate love for the natural world—I invite you to explore my devotional, Pilgrim God, now available on Amazon!
This daily Advent companion is $2.99 to purchase outright as an ebook, or Kindle Unlimited users can download and read for free.
I hope it blesses your Advent season!
tonight there is unmatched music: wind and rain flying phrases, falling flutes, and the moon, bright drum queen of night-melodies and star-songs rises. she whom God made celestial conductor over the orchestra unseen has spoken: the season for crickets and frogs to sing their songs is done. instead, the wind takes up the chorus and the moon-drum rises over the hillsides keeping time, as always keeping time.
Thanksgiving is behind us, and the darkness has deepened to prepare for the dim glow of Advent, every room emptying itself so it can be gradually filled back up, again, with the Spirit. With the Story.
Here on the property we’ve had a long stretch of no rain, deep cold and bright sunshine, waking to glittering frost as true winter shivers and shakes her way closer to us. The singers of summer are sleeping; no crickets or frogs fill the night with their tunes. Instead our nights are quiet and clear, giving us a true view of the waxing moon as she gathers herself together, inch by inch.
Tonight, she billows like a sail before her Maker. Full.
The inhale and exhale of our lunar neighbor can be such a comforting reminder as the dark half of the year takes hold: all is temporary; this song will fade to make way for a new one.
We take heart in each new season as it comes, because each has its own sweetness to hold on to, and we know that it will one day fade.
We are always keeping time, a drumbeat under our sternums, a tapping of our toes. Yet nature is not rushed; she knows only the rhythm her God has given her.
Tonight, the full moon billows like the fullest sail, scudding across the darkest tide.
Tonight, by God’s grace, she will remind us to keep time well.
To recognize each season as it comes, embrace it softly, and let it go.
Discussion Question
Do you observe Advent, my friends? If so, what traditions do you hold? If not, do you have other ways of “keeping time well”, of marking the passage of this season?
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Advent is one of my favorite times of year, by liturgical reckoning. It's a little lent--in the Catholic Church, identified by the liturgical color Purple, which we see in both Advent and Lent. Purple was the color of royalty, and Christ was clothed ironically in purple before his crucifixion, so it is evocative of both Christ as King and Christ suffering on the Cross. Advent quite deliberately rhymes with lent, while having it's own distinct beauty and unique features.
I have to be honest though, I don't mark it well. I have long term life plans to add more to my advent routine. The change during Mass is notable, and probably gives me the biggest difference in my season. Advent worship is beautiful. I am not a musician, but during penitential seasons like Lent and Advent, liturgical music shifts into what I think is a minor key--giving us beautiful, poignant, and vaguely sad hymns. O Come O Come Emmanuel is my favorite hymn, and you can't say it's a (purely) celebratory one! Beautiful, but restrained.
Sorry--unintentionally spilled a lot about the season and less about my own personal practices. I just put up my Christmas Tree yesterday--I call it a charlie brown tree, small, plastic, battery powered. But it's mine, and it radiates festivity into my otherwise mundane surroundings.
That's enough from me. Thank you for this beautiful reflection!
Advent is possibly my favorite part of the liturgical year, largely thanks to family traditions on my mom’s side - an Advent wreath, Jesse tree ornaments and stories, a slow trickle of Christmas decorations going up, culminating in the fully decorated tree on Christmas Eve. Now that I have my own little ones, it’s a joy to share these traditions with them as well. 🕯️