December 2: Advent Calendar

Observe and contemplate

Welcome to the Cottage Advent Calendar

Every day from December 1 - 24, you’ll receive an email (to “open” like a window on an old-fashioned Advent calendar). Each post will be something I’ve written on a seasonal theme. It is a genuine pleasure to share this collection of reflections with you. I hope each post will surprise you and shine light on your path.

And I hope you’ll invite your friends by sharing these daily posts with others.

TODAY’S reflection is an excerpt from the foreword I wrote to Madeleine L’Engle’s book, Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings. It begins with unpacking the Anglican theology of incarnation (because L’Engle was an Episcopalian) and expands from there to a wider invitation for the season of Advent.

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Window 2

Anglicans are best described as a Christmas people, those whose faith and devotion witness to Immanuel, God-with-us, the incarnate Love in the world. That presence can be discovered in all creatures—the great and the small—and in each home and hearth and in every field and forest. A Christmas people are not particularly interested in a distant or regal God. Instead, the emphasis is on “with-ness,” a quotidian God. The Incarnation draws the heart toward finding the divine everywhere and at all times. Those formed in this spirit trust that the everyday world is sacred. Anglicanism believes in a king who finds a stable and manger the most suitable of birthplaces, and who fetes his friends by serving up a simple meal of bread and wine. This is, more than anything else, a homey-faith, a spirituality of humanness and hospitality.

Miracle on 10th Street testifies to the Incarnation not with difficult theological words or philosophical arguments, but with the sort of poetry readers of Madeleine L’Engle surely expect. But something else happens in this collection as well: L’Engle does not explain the Incarnation with lovely language, but she guides us into it with the skill of a spiritual director and the insight of a mystic. “Observe and contemplate,” she invites in her poem Love’s incarnate birth, “Make real. Bring to be.”

This is the very thing we do not do in December—with the busyness of the days and an almost careless over-familiarity with the holiday. We have come to take Christmas for granted. . . We have lost its language, its mystery. We have forgotten how to see this season, one shaped by the paradoxes of dark and light. But L’Engle never scolds or chastises readers to remember the true meaning of Christmas. Instead, she calls us to attend and reflect upon the commonplace of December days. Go beyond the planning and parties and presents and even the church services. Go deeper, pay attention: Observe and contemplate.

The entire season from Advent through Epiphany is, in effect, an invitation to “mindfulness.” Winter gives us the opportunity to see the structure of the world more clearly, in the same way practicing mindfulness does. I am not sure if the word mindful was readily available to L’Engle when most of these selections were written. As I read these pages, however, the phrase “a mindful Christmas” wormed its way into my imagination. Could we truly experience Christmas mindfully, living this holy season attentive to the presence of God-with-us? Can we practice Incarnation?

Practice Incarnation. What an amazing possibility!

From the Foreword by Diana Butler Bass, in Madeleine L’Engle, Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings (2019).

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Observe and contemplate.
Make real. Bring to be.
Because we note the falling tree
The sound is truly heard.
Look! The sunrise! Wait —
It needs us to look, to see,
To hear, and speak the Word.

Observe and contemplate.
The cosmos and our little earth.
Observing, we affirm the worth
Of sun and stars and light unfurled.
So, let us, seeing, celebrate
The glory of Love’s incarnate birth
And sing its joy to all the world.

Observe and contemplate
Make real. Affirm. Say Yes,
And in this season sing and bless
Wind, ice, snow; rabbit and bird;
Comet and quark; things small and great.
Oh, observe and joyfully confess
The birth of Love’s most lovely Word.
— Madeleine L’Engle

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A Season of Gifts

The Cottage ADVENT CALENDAR is free and open to all. If you feel called to financially contribute to this work, there are two special ways to support The Cottage this December.

1. Give a gift subscription of The Cottage to a friend! An entire year of encouragement, thoughtful essays on faith and culture, seasonal specials, monthly Zoom meeting access, and the Secret Garden private podcast.As a token of my appreciation, you will receive a free copy of Grateful when you give someone a YEAR gift subscription. After you subscribe, we’ll send you an email requesting the address where we can send your gift.

NOTE: THE BOOK OFFER IS NOT VALID FOR 2022

To give a gift, click the “gift subscription” button below:

2. Sign yourself up for a membership or upgrade from free to a paid subscription to support my writing and the Cottage community. There are different levels of support — either monthly ($5 per month for as many months as you like) or yearly ($50). There is also a special level for cultivating members.

As a way to “pay it forward,” I will be giving 25% of ALL December receipts to the community outreach of Rising Hope Church, a wonderful mission-focused congregation that works for and among immigrants, low income families, the food insecure, and those without shelter in my neighborhood. To support the Cottage with a financial gift, click the “support” button below:

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Financial support is a way of enabling me to do my best writing and offer events and conversations at the Cottage. If you can’t afford a subscription and want to be part of the community, just respond to this email and let me know.

Your presence is the greatest gift of all.

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For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.
― Frederick Buechner

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