On the Edge of Advent

Beginning next week, November 24th I will launch a daily Advent devotional that will take us through the dwindling days of 2019 in to the dawning of 2020.  This devotional was crafted and created while I was on Sabbatical last summer.  It is based on the prayer practice of Visio Divina (more about that next week).  It is an invitation on a journey.  To travel with me both through the weeks of my Sabbatical, but also toward a little town of Bethlehem, where God was let loose in the world in a new way.

The series is based on forty photos I took through my travels.  Forty photos that I pray help you invite you to see new truths yourself and your connection to others/the world.  Almost all the photos are nature-themed.  I believe being out in creations helps us uncover and discover the invisible ties to all things.  Out in creation we uncover truths our ancestors have known for centuries but as modernization has moved us less away from living with the land, we have forgotten.  We uncover that we have soil in our souls.  We uncover that the star dust is both above us and inside us.  We uncover that we are constantly changing.

In when we reflect on both where we have been, where we are, and where we are growing; we discover new insights/ideas.  We discover that like a tree, we are adding millimeters of growth silently/slowly every year.  We discover the ways we are inter-connected and inter-twined with what is around us.  

As Richard Rohr recently wrote in his devotional, "Science is finding that the world is an integrated whole rather than separated parts. We are all holons, which are simultaneously a whole and yet a part of a larger whole." 

My prayer is that the devotional each day is that the photo, your prayer time, and the reflection will help you journey to Bethlehem this year.  More than that, my deepest prayer is that these reflections will be more than a trace of God's grace in your life.