Calendar

Dear Folks,

It is no wonder that the characters in the Bible are always telling us their dreams. The authors of the old and new testaments understood dreams as an expression of God, vignettes which picture the landscape of the Holy, where the dreamer encounters her fuller self. “Our dreams are the voice of the psychic center within us,” writes Episcopal priest and Jungian analyst John Sanford in his book, Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language. Here is a part of you, dreams tell us, perhaps unknown or forgotten, that longs to reconnect to your waking reality. Dreams invite integration and intend our wellbeing, and this movement toward wholeness is good for both the individual dreamer and the collective. In fact, Sanford writes, integrating the opposites of the divided self is the “restoration of the image of God.”

Carl Jung observed that dreams are not obscure at all; rather, dreams “are clear expressions of our very own nature that mean exactly what they show”. The difficulty is that dreams speak a symbolic language, and to understand them we must learn their symbolism. Our unconscious has things to tell us, and these narrative gifts from the dream maker keep asking to be heard or seen and known.

Consider Sanford’s work with the shadow, the archetypal “enemy” or opposite that we are likely to dismiss, discredit, or devalue. This “shadow is in the service of God,” Sanford writes, “and to wrestle with this other one in us is also to wrestle with God.” As was the case for Jacob who wrestled through the night with an “angel,” God assails us in life as our shadow, “seeming to be an adversary, but desiring our fundamental change.” The shadow is as old as humanity, frequently appearing in myths and literature, as well in today’s headlines. Am I the only one who feels like he’s wrestling a lot these days?!

And here’s the gift of wrestling, of integrating the opposites of the divided self: the shadow “feared and rejected, becomes evil. (But) recognized and accepted it plays a part in the total person.” There is a unity that combines the ego and the shadow, and it is exactly this unity we must find if the world or the individual is to escape disaster. Indeed, “until we have peace with this inner adversary, peace with our neighbor will be impossible, since we will always blame them for what is in us.” Tough sledding, but wisdom figures have told us for centuries that what we most hate in someone else is connected to some loathing or fear within us. Loving both the neighbor and the self is essential to our individual healing and the world’s.

The unconscious, both personal and collective, is not just a basement repository for what we have rejected and feared. It is a living reality, which when working with consciousness, engenders wellbeing. Importantly, forgiveness is “a work of the soul,” an inner experience that must be gone through, and the “complete” person works toward a harmonious relationship between all of his opposite tendencies. More than anything else, Sanford writes, “our dreams are concerned with this problem of opposites, and its resolution in a newer and higher synthesis.” Integration is forgiveness work; forgiveness leads to integration.

Sanford concludes, “One glance at our world tells us that we are not whole, and one look into the unconscious depth of almost any one of us shows that the struggle of opposites continues.” Yet our dreams, in strange and wonderful ways, “reflect the life process at work” which seeks to restore the image of God within us, beyond us, and between us.

I’m in. God is light and darkness, dying and rising, enemy/stranger/neighbor/lover/friend.

Love,
David

Dear members and friends of Redeemer,

These are disorienting times. We feel the weight of division, uncertain how to speak or where to stand. In such moments, we might turn to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who understood what it meant to seek Christian community under pressure. Writing from Nazi Germany while leading an underground seminary, Bonhoeffer produced Life Together, a meditation on what holds us when everything else seems to be falling apart.

Community as Gift

Bonhoeffer begins with a simple truth: Christian community is not something we create. It is something we receive. We exhaust ourselves trying to make community into what we think it should be. Bonhoeffer calls these our “wish dreams,” idealized visions that can prevent us from receiving the real, flesh-and-blood community God has given us.

The person whose politics baffle you, whose presence sometimes irritates you—this is the community you have been given. Not the one you would have chosen, but the one that is yours. There is freedom in this. We are not responsible for manufacturing unity. We are responsible for receiving what is already here, for recognizing that we have been gathered by Someone beyond ourselves.

The Rhythm of Solitude and Togetherness

Real community requires both togetherness and solitude. We cannot truly be together if we have not learned to be alone. In solitude, we learn to stand before God without others’ voices or expectations. Without this, our togetherness becomes superficial—we show up with masks rather than our actual selves. But without community, our solitude can become self-absorbed, untethered from the demands of love. We need the rhythm. Both withdrawal and constant togetherness can be ways of avoiding real community—one hides in absence, the other in noise.

Confession and Forgiveness

Here Bonhoeffer is more challenging. He insists that real community requires confession—not vague acknowledgment of our general sinfulness, but actual confession of actual sins to one another. This is where wish dreams die completely. We would rather maintain the appearance of having it all together, but Bonhoeffer knows that such pretense is the death of genuine fellowship.

In confession, we break through to the community. We stop performing and start being known. And in being known—truly known, with our failures and our brokenness visible—we discover whether grace is real or just a word we use in worship. Bonhoeffer writes that it is often easier to confess our sins to God than to another Christian, because in the presence of another person our sin can no longer remain abstract. But it is precisely there, in that uncomfortable exposure, that we meet the Christ who forgives.

 The Ministry of Listening

Bonhoeffer writes that listening is the first service we owe one another. Not advice, not solutions—listening. We are so eager to speak, to fix, to share our own experience, that we listen only long enough to find our opening. But true listening requires patience, the willingness to sit with someone’s pain or confusion without rushing to resolve it.

Our sequence hymn for this Sunday, the one sung right before the Gospel reading, “Make Me a Blessing” captures this beautifully: “Be to the helpless a helper indeed, unto your mission be true.” Sometimes being a helper means simply being present, offering the gift of our attention rather than the urgency of our solutions. Bonhoeffer suggests that those who can no longer listen to their brothers and sisters will soon no longer be able to listen to God.

In times of division, listening becomes crucial, not as a substitute for moral clarity, but as the means by which we truly understand what we’re facing. Listening is difficult, disciplined work. It doesn’t require us to accept what is harmful, but it does ask us to see clearly what is actually before us, to resist reducing people to caricatures of their worst moments.

We do not get to choose the time we live in or the people we are called to love. But we do get to choose how we receive what we have been given. We can open our hands. We can practice the rhythm of solitude and togetherness. We can risk the honesty of confession and the grace of forgiveness. We can listen. We can pray with the hymn writer, “Out of my life may Jesus shine; Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray. Make me a blessing to someone today.” This is enough. This is the work.

Grace and peace,
Keith+

Ignatius of Loyola was raised to question everything.  He was born in the Basque Region of northern Spain in 1491 and one of his older brothers accompanied that first discovery voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.  His upbringing was a front row seat to the advent reality that the world was actually much bigger than they had thought it was, the understanding of what is possible came into question daily as family dinner conversations were steeped in imaginations, stories, and the occasional updates from what to them was a new world.  At his own coming of age, Ignatius, in typical dramatic form, handed his sword and armor over to God to follow in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi and the other saints who chose poverty over riches, humility over pride, and community over self-importance.  He would go on to undergo a lifelong transformation that led him to found the Society of Jesus, known today as the Jesuits.  His lasting gifts to the universal church include the Spiritual Exercises, countless schools and universities across the globe, international and local social justice and advocacy centers that serve immigrant, refugee, and asylum communities, and a worldview that is committed to finding God in all things.

At the heart of his spirituality is an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, in which one speaks to Jesus as one friend speaks to another, heart to heart.  Ignatius arrives at this intimacy by integrating our faith with our reality.  He weaves together the God that we encounter in the scriptures with the God that we encounter on our commute to work in the morning.  And he tells us that this same God, the Living God, the Holy One, can only be found in reality.  God is not present with us in the world that we wish existed.  God is with us in the world as it is.  In our days as they are.  In us as we are.

Jesuit institutions joke that when someone truly enters into this stance or this way of seeing God and the world, they are ruined for life.  Ruined because it is no longer sufficient to accept the status quo or to settle for how we have always done things.  Fully trusting that God is with us in reality compels us to dream and work for a greater reality, one that does not settle for anything but love.  Many who have followed this way have done great things in the name of love.

Saint Peter Faber, one of Ignatius’ college roommates at the University of Paris, along with Saint Francis Xavier, devoted his life to mending relationships during the volatile years following the Reformation.  When many professional churchmen wanted to draw lines in the sand and prove that they were right, Peter set out to repair friendships and remind people that though they disagreed, they still belonged to one another, they were still friends, neighbors, and family.  They were still the Body of Christ.

Saint Peter Claver, after being told time and again that he didn’t fit in within the community, devoted the majority of his adult life to caring for men and women who were being shipped into the Americas to be sold as slaves.  Though he could not end slavery alone, he did what he could to make sure that these people knew that they were loved and that they were still human beings, though they were being treated in horrifically inhumane ways.  Perhaps one of the earliest community organizers in the Americas, he did what he could to build relationships and give voice to people who were experiencing one of the worst atrocities ever.

Blessed Rutilio Grande Garcia came to believe in and dedicate his life to spreading “a Gospel that has little feet.”  He is known for articulating liberation theology within the context of the poor in his home country of El Salvador.  Personal friend and precursor of sorts to Oscar Romero, Rutilio was transformed by his relationships with those who were poor, farmers, laborers, men, women, and children alike.  He saw God alive in them and remaining with them in their struggle for gaining a voice and freedom from oppression.  Rutilio ultimately gave his life entirely to a movement that continues to kindle political reform and growth towards justice in El Salvador and across the world.

The prayer that animated these people in their work of building community and striving for justice was a prayer that integrates the God that we encounter in the scriptures with the God that we encounter in our daily lives.  This is Ignatian Prayer and it is prayer that resides outside the box, animating its practitioners to be contemplatives in action.

A small group of us have begun practicing this form of prayer on Thursday mornings, at 8:00 in the chapel.  We sit with the Gospel reading for the coming Sunday and in silence compose the place, imagining where it is that this story either took place in history or where it would take place today in the context of our lives.  We imagine this place: what does it smell like; how does it feel; what do you see and hear; what does it taste like to be there?  We then imagine as the scene unfolds.  Sometimes staying on the sidelines as a bystander, other times entering into the story as one of the main characters.  If drawn, we speak with Jesus or someone else who was there.  Entering into the sacred story, we make it our own.  Then we turn to the Table where we reenact the gathering of friends at the Last Supper, we share Eucharist, and we invite God into our lives here and now.  After this, we share what happened in our prayer and together we paint an image of this experience that is full of color, meaning, and depth.

There is much that this way of prayer can offer us in any time, but maybe particularly now.  In time we may have more opportunities to practice Ignatian Prayer, but for now I want to personally invite you to join us on Thursday mornings at 8:00 in the chapel.  Following in this centuries-old way of prayer, we integrate the God that we encounter in scripture with the God that we encounter in our daily lives and this grounds and animates us to bring the love, community, and justice that we see in God to become more fully the love, community, and justice that we see and experience around us in our world today.

~Josh

When things grow dark, when words fail me, I turn to the words of scripture and to the One who is the Word. There I find grounding. Comfort. Challenge. Over the years, the psalms in particular have been written into my heart through tones and tunes, their melodies carrying truth deeper than words alone.

The heaviness and cold of this week have drawn me especially to Psalm 27, the psalm appointed for this Sunday’s worship. Its opening line calls to mind a favorite Taizé chant I love to sing: “The Lord is my light and salvation; in God I trust.” Perhaps you know it. You can listen and sing along with it here.

Blackout poetry is one creative way of engaging and praying with the words of scripture, of discovering perspective and meaning already present on the page. The process is simple. Begin by reading through the text slowly, circling or highlighting words and phrases that capture your attention. Then return to the text and cross out what you no longer need, noticing if new words emerge. If you need connecting words, look carefully to see whether they already exist in the text between the words you have chosen. If they don’t, it’s okay to add them, along with punctuation if needed. Once your poem or prayer has taken shape, black out the unused words with a Sharpie or your word processor’s black highlighter.

Below (also available here) is my blackout poem using Psalm 27. Would you like to try? Here’s a link to the full text where you can begin. If you feel comfortable, I hope you’ll share your poem prayer.

Much love,
Anna

^_____ Lord, ______________________
whom shall I fear?
_____________________   ________
________________________

^____________ evildoers? ________
______________
___ adversaries? __________
_____________________

^_ Though ________________________
_______________________
______ war rises up, __________
_____ I will be confident.

^{_______________________________________}
______ I seek _
to live. ____________________
______________________,
to behold ____ beauty. _________
_______________________

^{__________________________________________}
in the day of trouble,
___________________________________
___________________________

^{_____________________________________}
______________________________
____ I will _____________
sacrifice. ________________
I will sing. ____________________

^{________________} When I cry, ______
_____________________________
^{_____________________________________________
__________________________________________}

______________________________
______________________ help
____________________________ me,
O God of my salvation!
^{_______________________________________________}
_____________________

^__ Teach me _____________
_________________________
_____________________
^{_______________________} to ___________________
_________ witness ___________ against ___
_____________________ violence

^{______________________________________________________}
in the land ___________
^{____________________________}
__________ and ______________ take courage.
__________________

 

Last September, 35 clergy leaders in Metro IAF gathered on retreat at the Maritime Conference Center in Linthicum Heights, MD. As many of you know, Redeemer is a member institution of Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development (BUILD), an affiliate of Metro IAF which is part of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). Founded in 1940, IAF is our nation’s largest and longest standing network of local faith and community-based organizations. One of the pieces we read and reflected on together was a speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King on “creative maladjustment”. At the end of our retreat , responding to an invitation from our colleagues and inspired by our discussion, 5 of us agreed to work together to craft a brief theological statement honoring the faith traditions of our member institutions — which include synagogues and mosques as well as churches — that could ground and guide our work in our communities, in our current political moment, morally, spiritually and theologically.

Over the last 3 months, Rev Rashad Moore, East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC); Rev Cameron Barr, Orange County Justice United (OCJU); Rev Tanya Johnson, Durham Congregations, Associations & Neighborhoods (Durham CAN); Rev Doug Slaughter, Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) GA/SC; and I have spent time together on Zoom and communicating via email, text and phone. We have also spoken with and listened to our clergy colleagues with whom we relate in our various contexts. Yesterday, our larger group from the September retreat received the final draft of our theological statement; those who are able to gather on Zoom this afternoon at 4pm will offer their reactions and responses to what we’ve written. Our final approved reflection will then be available for Metro IAF/ IAF clergy leaders in our various cities and regions around the country to use and share, in sermons and social media, op-eds, etc. This will all be discussed on Zoom this afternoon.

Here is a link to the draft of the text, and here is a link to a voice recording of it.

“May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.”

~ Cristina

Dear members and friends of Redeemer,

As we step into this new year and celebrate the season of Epiphany, I find myself drawn to the image of light—how it reveals, how it guides, how it transforms everything it touches.

The Great Reveal

Epiphany means “manifestation” or “revealing,” and in these weeks following Christmas, we witness Jesus revealing himself in extraordinary ways. The Magi follow a star and find the newborn king. At his baptism, the heavens open and God’s voice declares, “This is my beloved Son.” Jesus goes throughout Galilee, teaching in synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, curing every disease and every sickness among the people. Light upon light upon light—each revealing more of who Christ is and what his coming means for the world.

But here’s what strikes me: these revelations aren’t just about Jesus making himself known. They’re about what becomes visible when light enters the world. The Magi’s journey reveals their seeking hearts. The baptism reveals Jesus’s solidarity with humanity. The curing of diseases and sickness reveals his concern with our whole person: body, mind, and spirit.

Light reveals. And sometimes what it reveals is us.

Resolutions or Revelations?

This time of year, we’re surrounded by talk of resolutions and self-improvement. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to grow, but I wonder if we’re asking ourselves the wrong question. Instead of “How can I fix myself this year?” what if we asked, “What is God revealing to me? What light is trying to shine through?”

Maybe the real work of a new year isn’t forcing ourselves into better versions through sheer willpower. Maybe it’s removing whatever blocks the light that’s already trying to shine through us—the fears, the grudges, the old stories we tell ourselves about who we are or aren’t.

The Magi didn’t create the star. They followed it. They let themselves be led by light they didn’t conjure. There’s wisdom in that kind of surrender.

Shining Lights

Jesus tells us, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”

You are already light. Not “you will be light if you try hard enough” or “you should be light.” You are. The question is: what’s the bowl? What are we hiding our light under—whether from fear, exhaustion, doubt, or simply forgetting who we are?

As we journey through this Epiphany season together, I invite you to hold this question gently: Where is God’s light trying to shine through you this year? It might be in a relationship that needs mending, a gift you’ve been afraid to share, a word you’ve been hesitant to speak, or a joy you’ve been reluctant to claim.

An Invitation

In the coming weeks, I’d love to hear from you. If you’re willing, share with me or with our community:

• One way you hope to let your light shine more freely this year
• One area where you’re seeking God’s revelation or guidance
• One “bowl” you’re ready to remove

Let’s not walk this path alone. The Magi traveled together. So can we.

May this season of light reveal to each of us what we most need to see—about God, about ourselves, and about the world we’re called to illuminate.

In the light of Christ,
Keith+

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.” — Isaiah 60:1

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the church

The creatures are stirring wherever you search.

The children have lined up in costume and glitter,

Small shepherds, big Jesus, and angels that twitter.

The choirs have rehearsed every Fa, la, la, la, la-r

Hodie, Gloria, following yonder star!

Flower guild styled greens, clipped on hill and dale,

From florists, trees, and yards like yours, night pruning beats a sale.

And swags were all swung with plenty of clearance

So that Keith who is tall could make an appearance.

When up on the roof there arose such a stormin’

It’s Josh, the new priest, who used to be Roman.

There’s Mark who will fix every shingle that’s dangling,

And Amanda who calms every nerve that is jangling.

Call Ellen who makes all the trains run on time,

Cristina, for whom every breath is sublime,

Bless Anna who guides to the school every child,

Thank Mary and Grace, Mother T who is mild.

Bert and Robert at keyboard and Abby beside

Alison filing music and Chuan back in his stride.

And don’t forget Katrina who keeps the books true,

Or Rob who is sexton and our newest friend Huu.

To round out the team way back there in the corner

Is live streamer Ben Paglinauan-Warner.

 

O little town of Baltimore, how chill we see thee lie!

Each neighborhood has something good, like bars or food to buy.

Where network films are sometimes made that challenge and inspire,

There’s House of Cards and Homicide and Simon’s show The Wire.

In Pigtown many porkers race the Squeakness through the streets,

Near B & O and old Mount Clare, where Babe Ruth cut his teeth.

And Edgar Allen Poe is laid to rest on West Fayette,

So Ravens fans can lift a can to Toaster never met.

From Harlem Park to Roland Park and Hamden in between,

Fed Hill and Canton, Highlandtown, Mt. Vernon cuts a scene.

There’s much to savor east and west, our charms stretch south and north,

One Baltimore building step by step to make God’s peace on earth.

 

Come thou long-expected Ravens,

Born to make your city proud

We just need a few more touchdowns,

Pass complete and score allowed.

 

Baltimore’s strength and consolation,

Hope of every fan thou art

Help us beat the Green Bay Packers,

Smash the Steelers, bless their hearts.

 

Born thy faithful to deliver

To the play-offs, with some style.

Birdland we will flock together

Thrill us Jackson, Derrick, Kyle.

So gather close this blessed night as heaven comes quite near

Now born a king and yet a child, the holy one is here.

To reconcile the nations and bring God’s peace to life,

And stir the part of every heart that heals our stress and strife.

 

In us, as at your dawning, we feel the pangs of birth,

The hopes and fears of all the years stretch clear across the earth,

For night is at its darkest before the morning breaks,

Your light, our hope, your truth, our strength for every human’s sake.

 

Go tell it on the mountain, y’all, with joyful voices shout,

That in unlikely places our God has come about.

Good news for you and love proclaimed in this poem that I write,

Happy Christmas to you all and to all a blessed night!

Love,
David

Dear Folks,

The Lessons and Carols service held in churches across the world today began in a temporary, wooden cathedral at Truro, at the southernmost tip of England, as a gift to the resilient but weary Cornish people. Earlier that year, on May 20, 1880, the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall had laid the foundation stones of Truro Cathedral in a festive celebration, but behind the scenes a number of residents had lost their homes to the construction, and by December, much of the town mourned the demolition of their beloved 16^th century church. In that bittersweet context, the first bishop of Truro, Edward Benson, devised a new service: the Nine Lessons with Carols.

Full disclosure, it seems the locals were more likely to spend Christmas Eve lifting a few pints than in worship, so the enterprising churchman hoped to draw the people from the pubs. One wag reported, perhaps “there was too much of the wrong kind of Christmas spirit being consumed.” (Christopher Gray, The Guardian, November 2013)

The residents of Cornwall loved the new service. Taking nine biblical passages from the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, the bishop interspersed them with various carols and hymns, putting forth the entire story of salvation in an hour’s time. Notable was his including “popular songs” in the cathedral’s offering. Historically, Christmas carols had been sung by little choirs in people’s homes, so their use in the church service made the most of a new trend. The service begins by setting out humankind’s longing for redemption and moves through Jesus’s birth in Luke’s gospel. And on that first Christmas Eve, the bishop also decided that the first reader “should be a humble chorister, (with) each subsequent (reading) progressing through the cathedral hierarchy up to the bishop, a tradition that continues to this day.” (Gray)

In 1918, the Rev. Eric Milner-White, new dean of King’s College Cambridge introduced the service to the college chapel, taking advantage of their established choral strength. The British Broadcasting Corporation first broadcast the service from King’s College on the radio in 1928 and on television beginning in 1954, which has made the King’s College service the most popular and widely recognized presentation. (Alistair McGrath)

Milner-White made a few modifications over the years that are reflected in Redeemer’s version of this beautiful service. In 1919 he began the service with a treble voice singing “Once in Royal David’s City,” and in 1920 he wrote the Bidding Prayer, as well as rearranging the lessons a bit. What we will experience this Sunday at 5:00 p.m. is otherwise largely unchanged, and yet somehow the spirit always seems to stir new birth.

Join us for this extraordinary gift.

Love,
David

My Advent reflection for you today is a series of invitations, moment by moment by moment.

I invite you, in this moment, to give yourself the gift of pausing.

I invite you, in this moment, to take a break from the stream of thoughts, the to-do lists, the conveyor belt of activity and commentary in your mind. (I promise these will all be there for you to take on, resume and “pick up” again, should you so choose.)

I invite you, in this moment, If you are not presently sitting in a comfortable position, to make whatever adjustments you need, in order to be seated comfortably.

(Go ahead … take your time … I will wait …)

I invite you, in this moment, now that you are seated comfortably (… and in a way that is supportive of your spine …) to place one hand on your chest, close to your beating heart, and the other hand on your belly.

I invite you, in this moment, to take one deep nourishing breath, inhaling deeply through your nose, allowing the air to fill up your belly (pay attention to your hand on your belly as it rises), then your ribs, then your chest (pay attention to your hand on your chest as it rises) … and then exhaling slowly through your lips, releasing air from your chest, then ribs, then belly (paying attention to your hands as they fall).

I invite you to take a second deep, nourishing breath, in the same way as the first, watching your hands rise and fall, and seeing if you can take a bit longer to exhale … that’s it … nice and slow ….

I invite you to take a third deep, nourishing breath, in the same way as the first and second, watching your hands rise and fall once again, and seeing if you can take even a bit longer to exhale … that’s it … even slower ….

I invite you, if you would like, to enjoy a few more deep, nourishing breaths in this same way. Feel free to close your eyes, now that you know what to do and how to do it. (And instead of watching your hands rise and fall, allow yourself to feel them rising and falling.)

And when you open your eyes again, I invite you to offer a prayer … an intention … for yourself or for someone else … in this moment …

My prayer and intention for you, my friend, in this moment, is that you allow yourself the gift of pausing to enjoy more deep, nourishing breaths throughout this Advent season.

Amen. And so it is. And so it shall be.

Love,
Cristina

After the fullness of Thanksgiving, the top of my Advent calendar greets me with its simple, direct instruction: “Slow down. Quiet. It’s Advent.”

Each day I color in a small square on my Forward Movement calendar*, letting its invitation guide me. Paired with the soft glow of candles in the Advent wreath and prayers for hope, peace, joy, and love, these rituals remind me to find literal quiet in a noisy world, and to begin again with the small habits that help me find inner quiet and stay grounded.

Those who know me well know that summer is my favorite season. But the growing cold and dark of this time of year is its own teacher, a gentle invitation from creation to rest and listen. I’m trying to let my inner pace match this wisdom that my body already naturally wants to follow.

In our clergy team meeting this week, as we talked about our work and the content of our hearts, a calm quiet settled over us. We remembered Cristina’s “Grace Face Grab” and those practices that remind us to focus on the present and pay attention to God’s inbreaking.

A friend recently sent me an article about a scientific study on micro-habits, small embodied practices that shape our human flourishing. Things like starting your day with 90 seconds of bright light, drinking water before coffee, or taking one slow exhale before opening your phone.

This is Advent: tiny acts of presence. Simple choices that bring wholeness and tune our senses to God’s nearness.

How is your Advent going? What does slowing down and being quiet look like for you in a season when much of the world is speeding up? What do you notice when you try to slow down or share the contents of your heart? Where are you finding moments of presence and quiet?

In this season of holy waiting and watching, may your rituals help you prepare room for the coming Light – slowly, quietly, one small square, one small practice at a time.

With hope, peace, joy, and love,
Anna

*Would you like an Advent calendar? There are extras at the Welcome Center. Please take one!