Advent & Christmas Daybook 2022 - 29 meditations to prepare our hearts, minds, and bodies for Christ's arrival
Advent begins on Sunday, November 27!
I’m excited to once again offer two ways to enjoy the Advent Daybook devotional posts: a daily email or one-time digital download. Purchase one or both option and invite your friends to do the same!
If daily emails aren’t your cup of tea, but you’d appreciate the content from our Daybook posts, the pdf option is for you! Head to the shop to purchase and download a 68-page interactive .pdf now!
With anticipation,
Tamara
p.s. I talk a bunch more about Advent and how the Daybook helps us prepare for Christmas below. If you don’t need all of that info, you can just click here and purchase your own guide now.
ADVENT BEGINS ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27!
The Advent Daybook 2022 includes 29 meditations centered around Scripture, art, music, prayer, and practices to prepare our hearts, minds, and bodies for Christ’s arrival.
Plus, you’ll receive bonus content to celebrate all 12 days of Christmas!
WHAT’S INCLUDED:
29 meditations for each day of Advent 2022
daily Scripture readings following the lectionary
daily art + music curations to add beauty to your Advent
guidance for contemplative prayer practices for Advent
specially curated playlists to companion you through the season
simple & meaningful ideas to help you integrate the themes of Advent into your everyday life
BONUS: 12 Ways to Celebrate 12 Days of Christmas checklist & links to 6 of my Christmas playlists!
Why Advent?
Advent is a season of invitation for the feast that is coming. Practicing Advent for over a decade has formed me spiritually, emotionally, and relationally in ways that are hard to quantify. It’s a little bit of growth year after year that adds up to a quieter soul and a sturdier hope. Each year, the prophets, psalm singers, and gospel writers invite me to see with a clearer lens the mystery of God’s miraculous arrival. The same mystery shapes our entire lives, the waiting for Christ’s next and final arrival. The arrival that we expect is the one that will never end with another good-bye. Oh, mysterious hope!
While Advent trains me to embrace mystery, it also requires me to not look away from the inherent tension of acknowledging that, yes, all shall be well, and all is not yet well. Every year, I sort of hope the prophets' words will be cozier. Why must there be so much talk about God’s justice wiping out man’s evil? Why so many flaming arrows and toppling earth?
The reality of arrival is not a cozy scene, but a cosmic, unstoppable disruption of the kingdom of men by the reigning God and His Son, Jesus. Advent is the invitation to walk the pathway of this eternal kingdom. The reign of Christ that’s already here, but not yet fully arrived shines the light for us as we walk. We live in this stretched out parentheses and Advent kindly welcomes our weary souls to contemplate the visible reality of our lives and the world in contrast to the invisible reality of the Christ who came, is with us now, and will most assuredly come again.
In the spirit of Advent’s invitation, I welcome you to walk through the days - one by one - quietly, slowly, and contemplatively. If this all sounds impractically holy, I assure you the best sort of contemplation is what happens when we carry a quiet heart through all the noisy celebrations or the sorrowful absences of December.
How to enjoy Advent Daybook posts: Look, Listen, Read, Pray, & Do
Each day of Advent (November 27 - December 24) I’ll share a devotional post that includes a work of art, a song, daily Scripture passages, a short prayer, and a simple action to help you practice the waiting days of Advent.
Look
Some might call this devotional practice of visual contemplation Visio Divina or a divine looking. It’s not the actual work of art that is divine, but the Holy Spirit’s invitation to encounter Christ through nonverbal reflection. Throughout the year I collect digital images that I think will enhance the Scriptural themes of Advent. You’ll notice that some of the images evoke traditional Christmas scenes while others seem to have nothing to do with the holiday season at all. The images rotate through classic and contemporary art of all media. Each week I include an image (usually a photograph) from news headlines of the year. My hope is that the Scripture passages for each day orient the visual art selection and sometimes, honestly, that’s a difficult task. The prophets don’t make cozy, holiday scenes a priority in their descriptive language!
Listen
December is prime time for music lovers! One of my earliest concerns about practicing a slow entry into the Christmas feast was that I’d miss all of the beautiful carols and Christmas songs I’d been singing at the top of my lungs since childhood. And, it’s true - I do miss singing along with most of the world (although, I’ve come to appreciate the store soundtracks as a perk of shopping in December!) What I didn’t know until I’d lived Advent for a few years is that I’d grow the same attachment to the old hymns and carols of Advent.
While I could never get tired of the quintessential Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” there are so many more to enjoy. Almost as much as the Scripture passages that we soak in each year, it’s the theologically rich, melodically beautiful lyrics of Advent that have formed me. Thankfully, as the Church has become increasingly reacquainted with the historic liturgical calendar, there’s been a lovely renaissance of new and retuned music allowing us to raise our voices every season. Most of the songs I share each day are contemporary versions of old classics or new tunes written for Advent, but each week I try to mix in a choral or traditional arrangement.
I try to select quality recordings and include a Spotify, YouTube, and when available, a Bandcamp version for your convenience. Since the music is chosen to enhance the visual art, my family chooses to play the music as a backdrop for contemplating the image. You might choose to do each separately. I also include a link to the lyrics for each song so you can sing along if you’d like!
Read
Oh my goodness, I love the lectionary. I’ve always been intrigued by the interweaving of the Old and New Testaments for the beauty of the various literary rhythms as well as the deep satisfaction of experiencing the living, breathing word of God that looks backward and forward at the same time. It’s so rich.
If you don’t do anything else with the posts, read the Scripture passages. I include a link for the complete lectionary passages each day and then excerpt the portions that particularly spoke to me as I was preparing the post. This year I’ve switched to the New Revised Standard Version most often, but if you click through the link to the Biblegateway page, you can adjust the version to your preference. Sunday Scripture readings are taken from Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary. Daily Scripture readings are taken from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and include both Morning and Evening Psalms (Year1).
The Gospel accounts and the Psalms offer a counterpoint to the weighty prophecies we find tucked into the end of the Old Testament. Read each passage (or the excerpt provided) slowly and listen for the invitation of God to the world, his people, and you.
Starting December 19 this year, I’ll be focusing the reading portion of each post on one of the “O Antiphons” (an ancient liturgy that is the root of the beloved “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” hymn). We’ve begun to find the emphasis on worship and adoration in the final week of Advent each year. We continue to be inspired by Malcolm Guite’s sonnets and a prayer service our church holds during this week. I look forward to sharing the beauty here with you, too.
Pray
Each week the prayers are formed around the Sunday collect (a prayer said by the congregation in Sunday worship). While you could pray directly from the daily Scripture (especially the Psalms) or the hymn lyrics, I include a guided prayer for each day. Once a week, I invite you to a form of intercessory prayer termed “Prayers of the People” in the Book of Common Prayer. This allows us to set aside at least one day to remember each sphere of our world with specific prayer.
Do
The spiritual practice of contemplation, at its best, moves from reflective stillness to thoughtful action. We were made by a Creator to love Him, our neighbors, and ourselves with heart, mind, soul, and strength. I’m delighted to invite you to join me in simple, daily actions to demonstrate God’s love to our neighbors, ourselves, and the world. Some of the activities will feel familiar to the traditional customs of Christmas time, and some will feel new and counterintuitive. It’s all good.
Advent & Christmastide Daybook daily meditations online
Join my Daybook Meditations membership, Each day you’ll receive one meditation in your email inbox and have exclusive access to the entire season in the Daybook Meditations member area of my website.
Advent & Christmastide Daybook one-time .pdf download
Purchase and download the entire Daybook in one .pdf to follow along at your own pace throughout the season. If your friends or family would like a devotional guide for Advent but becoming a Daybook Meditations member isn't a good fit right now, the Advent & Christmastide pdf download is the next best thing.
Thank you so much for your continuous support. Every time you mention my spiritual direction offerings or devotional guides to a friend or engage on my social media accounts (here and here), you're helping to support my work that reaches beyond the scope of this website. I am grateful for your help!
May the peace of our Messiah permeate your hearts, minds, bodies, homes, and neighborhoods in the coming weeks. I’m with you and for you in this beautiful work of worship.
Tamara