Through Every Dark Door the Creating Love of the Universe Waits
Advent Guides For You and Your Congregation:
A Children’s Book of Reflections for Families,
a Book by Bill McKibben, and Denominational Guides
During the Christian season of Advent, all Creation waits in the encroaching dark and cold with eager longing for the birth of baby Jesus. In 2024 the Advent season begins on December 1 and ends on Christmas Eve.
You’re invited to select an Advent resource with a Creation Care theme to guide your own and your family’s Advent reflections. You may want to share some resources with your congregation’s children’s program, the Creation care and justice teams, and submit them for publication in your congregation’s newsletter.
A beautiful resource to consider is the book All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings, the Children’s Edition by Gayle Boss. Its message resonates with lovers of Creation across faiths especially in dark times in the life of civilization and our Earth.
I look forward to the joy of spending a little time each day of Advent with this book for young children and adults. Its pages introduce us to the stories of 24 amazing woodland creatures and how they adapt to the cold and the dark; each story repeats the refrain, “The dark is not an end. It’s a door. It’s the way a new beginning comes.”
Wood Frog freezes into a frog-shaped cube of ice! For six months the Painted Turtle doesn’t breathe! Woodchuck can’t be awakened, even if shaken! And Chickadee is unsure the seeds he’s hidden will last the winter and, still, he sings!
The perspective of Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328), German Catholic priest, theologian, and mystic gives us a glimpse of the potential depth of reflections on these stories. He said, “Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God.”
In 2016 when the book was published, Father Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, said, “Each of the beautiful creatures in this little book is a unique word of God, its own metaphor, all of them together drawing us to the One we all belong to. Adapting to the dark and cold they announce the Good News of Advent: through every dark door the creating Love of the universe waits.”
To learn more about the book you can:
- read an excerpt,
- see a discussion guide for each animal,
- watch a 1.5 minute video previewing the book and
- see 5 ways to order the book.
Another resource during Advent as we prepare for the arrival of the baby Jesus is Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For A More Joyful Christmas by environmentalist Bill McKibben. It’s even more relevant than it was when first published in 2013. For many, trying to limit the amount of money they spend at Christmas to about a hundred dollars per family, is a real spur to creativity — and a real anchor against the relentless onslaught of commercials and catalogs that try to say Christmas is only Christmas if it comes from a store. Bill McKibben offers suggestions on how to rethink Christmastime, so that our current obsession with present-buying becomes less important than the dozens of other possible traditions and celebrations.
Creation Care Denominational Advent Guides
- 2024 Advent Daily Devotionals from Presbyterians for Earth Care
- 2024 Catholic Laudato Si’ Advent with Advent calendar and Contemplation Kit.
- 2024 Mennonite Church USA and MC Canada: Journeying with Creation: Advent Prayers and Actions in a Time of Climate Change
- Planning Advent 2022 For You and Your Congregation from ICCT with Advent Reflections and twelve ways to care for Creation as we celebrate Advent
