Skip to main content

Advent writing

If I put it on here it commits me to actually doing it, doesn't it?  OK then.

Deep breath

At the risk of making my blog look like a thesaurus, I have come up with a word for each day of Advent, and the plan is to write something every day to go with that word.  I'm hoping not to go too Thought-for-the-day-ish, with a neat little moral wrapped up in sparkly paper, but if I can come up with something that makes me think, and maybe hits the spot for a few other people, I'll consider it a job well done.  And if not, well, it's only 25 days and you can all come back after Christmas!

Lent and Advent are the two big periods of preparation in the Church calendar, for Easter and Christmas respectively.  Their value for me right now is that they are nicely delineated chunks of time.  I may not be able to keep up something new indefinitely, but surely I can manage it for less than a month, right?  And that month might just be enough to change me a little bit for the better.

This time, I have found myself missing that process of thinking, and of arranging words to express those thoughts.  Blog writing has been pushed to one side by an avalanche of boxes to unpack, followed by a deluge of "What should I do now?" from an attention-craving toddler.  Not to mention another small person who will be shortly muscling his way into the world and demanding even more time.  If I want to claw back any thinking time, now is probably the month to do it. And since this is the month designated by the church for centuries as one to pause and realise the sheer wonder of God coming to earth: why not make the most of it?

I've used the Creighton University online resources a few times for Lent, and their Advent site looks just as useful and inspiring.  Go have a look if you're interested in any daily readings, prayers, or general tips on how to have a more thoughtful Advent.

So, Advent starts on Sunday and I think I have a bit of writing to do before then.  Watch this space!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...
Post a Comment
Read more

Laid-back Lille and Bustling Brussels

After a night in a tiny AirBnB in Canterbury , where there were chocolates on the table and artwork on every inch of the walls, we boarded a ferry with an absolute minimum of fuss, enjoyed a smooth crossing of the channel, and were deposited in the decidedly unscenic surroundings of the port of Dunkirk two hours later. Once we got past the cranes and shipping containers, though, the countryside was flat but pleasant. We stopped at a small town called Cassel, reached by cobbled roads winding up a hill. On the summit was an old windmill and a topograph telling you the distances to various improbable places; St Omer may have been visible in the haze, but Manchester was surely over the horizon.  In Lille, we found our apartment, unpacked the luggage (one rucksack apiece), and set out to find food. Our first choice was fully booked, so we embarked on that kind of aimless wandering where everyone is hungry and no one wants to actually choose a restaurant. We reached a Lebanese place call...
Post a Comment
Read more

Birmingham: Temples to many things

Birmingham's cathedral is overshadowed by more modern temples: the mirrored swirls of New Street train station; the dotted bulge of the Selfridges store; the lacy blocks of the library; the pillars and pediments of the museum and art gallery. Museum and town hall Next to all these, Birmingham Cathedral, in its square of dusty grass, isolated from the main flow of shopping and travel, seems less like a dominant building and more like a minor chapel. It turns out the unpretentiousness is deliberate. St Philip's Church was built in 1715 when the worshipping population of Birmingham had outgrown the medieval constraints of St Martin in the Bullring . Birmingham remained part of the Diocese of Worcester until 1905, when Charles Gore pushed for the creation of a new diocese and became its first bishop. Seeing the depth of need in the city, he decided to convert St Philip's to a cathedral rather than spend money on a grand new building. Birmingham Cathedral had to be restored afte...
Post a Comment
Read more