Third Thursday

a devotional for Advent

A Blessed Advent to all!

For the entire season of Advent, I’ll be posting entries from my original Advent devotional ebook, Pilgrim God, every week.

---

squirrel and sparrow
say
listen:
for the heartbeats
all around you;

the ones 
in other branches
in lower dens
in winter sleep
in birdsong treetops;

you are
one
of so very many
hymn-psalm
journey-walk
pitter-patter
hearts. 

As we walk this road of life, we are surrounded by companions. Some of them are human: family and friends, strangers of all kinds, neighbors and acquaintances. But some of them bear silent, wide-eyed witness: the animals that share our spaces, the plants and fungi and trees along our path, the weather, the places where we work and dwell and spend our time of rest. 

Before we discount these as our companions, we need only look to the Old Story for proof: it is not a fairy-story that the animals crowded around the Holy Child’s birthplace. It is not fantasy, it is not a lie. It is a mythic truth that the animals recognized in the Pilgrim their Savior, too. Jesus did not come simply to save humankind, but to set all of Creation to rights. He came to reorder the rhythm of the entire universe. 

So may we never scorn the silent, wordless, wondering ones among us. May we scatter birdseed and tend the garden. May we learn the names we gave each beast and berry, long ago when God walked in the First Twilights. We may never feel fully comfortable in the company of the mosquito or the spider, the rat or the vulture, but may we know--at least--that they pray and praise as we do, in their own particular way. That the Story is written in them, too.

Pleasant or unpleasant as we each may be, we all bear the Story, and it is ours to tell.

---

Thank you for reading!

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