Before we start…an Announcement!
Back in 2020, I wrote my very first completed devotional: a daily devotional for Advent, “published” as a free downloadable PDF. This year, now that I’m doing a bit more research about self-publishing, I decided to polish up my little devotional, reformat it for Kindle, and make it available on Amazon.
And so…
Introducing (or re-introducing, rather)…
This daily devotional is designed to be used any year, so purchase it once and you can use it annually! It’s $2.99 to buy it outright, or you can borrow and read it for free if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber. If you’re looking for a poetic journey through the Advent season, I would love for you to read, leave a review, and let me know what you think!
NOTE: If you’re a longtime reader and you already have a copy of that original PDF, be aware that all changes I’ve made to this new edition were related mostly to cleaning up the formatting, with no substantive changes to content. For that reason, there’s no need to purchase a new copy unless you’re a Kindle user and/or you simply want to support. But I would appreciate very much if you would recommend Pilgrim God to anyone you think would enjoy it, or even leave a review, if you can!
I truly hope this little book blesses your Advent, friends!
Thank you for joining us!
Before we begin, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from Monday’s discussion question:
of Seeking The Narrow and Narrowtives wrote:I can honestly say I'm not sure I've ever given November her due. I've never been one to hang onto Halloween (in its commercialized form. I'm learning much more about it's roots only this year). But I've also never jumped headfirst into Christmas. Other than trying not to be a glutton on Thanksgiving, I've only seen November as an empty space. This year I'm going to do my best to find a spot on my land to sit and listen because it's a shame how little I understand November. It's time to change that.
Thank you so much for this honesty, Derek!
I’m sure November has plenty to tell you. :)
The Lantern Walk
For the last few years, when Martinmas rolls around, I get a certain funny little folk-song stuck in my head. Like clockwork.
I learned it when I was working as a teacher in a local school, a Montessori-based spot with decidedly Waldorf leanings. (If that’s gibberish to you, never fear; these are just terms for educational philosophies.)
The school was, by all aesthetic accounts, the perfect place for me to work. It was in a sweet, rural, woodsy spot, and there was lots of emphasis on folk traditions, hands-on learning, outdoor play, and love for nature.
Having been in operation for many years, the school had little yearly rituals that I had to learn, being the newest teacher hired. The folk-song in question was part of one such ritual: the school’s annual lantern-walk.
Every year, during the week of Martinmas, the students would cut shapes out of white paper bags to make dozens of elaborate luminaries, and on the Friday the adults would line the bags up along the forest trail—damp and loamy and studded with moss and mushrooms—and place a tealight in each. Then, in the evening after sunset, the parents would arrive and we would light the candles, sing songs, and lead the children through the trail.
The song—my favorite of the few we would sing—goes like this:
Glimmer, lantern, glimmer Little stars a-shimmer Over meadow, moor, and dale, Flitter-flutter, elfin veil; Peewit, peewit, ticka-ticka-tick Roo-coo, roo-coo! Glimmer, lantern, glimmer Little stars a-shimmer Over rock and stalk and stone, Wander, tripping, little gnome; Peewit, peewit, ticka-ticka-tick Roo-coo, roo-coo! (Song by Lorraine Nelson Wolf - listen here)
It’s a simple, whimsical little song. No deep meanings or anything. But every time it comes back to me, I get a pang of something like nostalgia, something like sorrow.
That job was not all it had been promised to be, it turns out. It was, by all accounts, one of the hardest seasons of employment I’ve ever had. Anxiety-inducing, thankless, and completely draining on every level. As much as I loved the sweetness of the traditions, the Waldorf-style simplicity, the beauty of the wooded location, there was a sickness in the relational aspect of the job that couldn’t be healed. It was a shame, really. It could have been perfect. Instead, it was gloomy. A dark cloud I still shudder under, though years have passed.
But every November, memories of the lantern walk come back to me: voices singing, the excited squeals of children turning to visible puffs of breath in the cold, the firepit flickering glow on the buildings after hours, and that long path of lights visible through the dark trees. Not before or since have I encountered something in my adult life that made me so thoroughly remember the magic of being a child, of seeing something otherworldly with the naked eye.
As an adult, the imagery of the lantern walk is what still haunts me: the dark paths of November are not fully in shadow. If we look, they are lit by tiny pinpricks of light—little stars a-shimmer—delicate luminaries that only show us the next few steps in front of our wandering feet. Little lights that turn our nights to magic.
If we are patient and open, there are firepits to gather around and songs to sing, to bring us through the season. Even the darkest periods of our lives are navigable, if we embark upon them together. If we seek, always, the light ahead.
Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed.
Glimmer, lantern, glimmer indeed.
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Years ago some friends of mine (who had homeschooled their kids in the Waldorf tradition) did a version of this after Halloween with pumpkins. They lined the pond on their property with the pumpkins and invited children to walk along it. I understand what you mean by things staying with you. I’m sorry about the bad experience at the school, though. It’s sad that that can happen!
How lovely. My son does this at his school in Basel. All the songs are in German and the kids seem to sing them all year long!