We’ve come around to the season of Advent again – that quiet, twinkly time of anticipation before the glorious joy of Christmas. As usual, I’m marking the season by humming “O Come O Come Emmanuel” over and over again, and by reading.
Fittingly, I discovered Advent because of a book: Watch for the Light, a collection of readings for Advent and Christmas, which I picked up at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., many years ago. The contributors are a diverse, thoughtful group of scholars, poets, philosophers and theologians, and their words help me live more deeply into this season every year. From essays by Kathleen Norris and Brennan Manning to poems by T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath (yes, really), this collection always wakes me up, reminds me to pay attention – which is what Advent is all about.
Kathleen Norris’ lovely memoir The Cloister Walk is loosely organized around the liturgical year, and I turned back to the Advent chapters last weekend, rereading them by the light of our glowing Christmas tree. She speaks of reading the words of the prophet Isaiah on the first Sunday of Advent at a Benedictine monastery, and being grateful that such poetry exists in the Bible, and that “it tastes so good in [my] mouth.”
Madeleine L’Engle, another one of my guides, wrote an odd, striking memoir-cum-meditation, The Irrational Season, that is also somewhat tied to the liturgical year. Some of it is a little esoteric for me, but the Advent chapter, “The Night is Far Spent,” is quietly moving. Madeleine writes of being wakeful in the night, standing at the window of her New York City apartment with a mug of bouillon in her hands, musing on time, creation and the mystery of Advent. It’s an image I return to every year.
I fell completely in love with Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice when my friend Julie handed it to me, several Christmases ago. It’s a quiet, lovely story of five rather vaguely connected people who all end up at an old house in northern Scotland at Christmastime. All of them are struggling with different griefs, and all of them find unexpected joy and redemption during their time together. The ending makes me cry.
Someone has said that poetry gets us closest to the mystery of this season, and for that I like Luci Shaw’s collection Accompanied by Angels, which takes us through the life of Jesus. Many of the poems are short, with striking images. Taken together, they form a mosaic that highlights a few new facets of this Jesus who is so well known and yet so mysterious.
I’ve long loved Father Tim Kavanagh and his adventures in Mitford, North Carolina. Shepherds Abiding, the eighth Mitford novel, is a sweet story of one Advent/Christmas season in which Father Tim restores a derelict Nativity scene as a gift for his wife, Cynthia. Meanwhile, other denizens of Mitford are going about their own Christmas business. Like all the Mitford novels, it’s funny, down-to-earth and quietly hopeful.
I reach for this stack of books every Advent, and their words – especially those in Watch for the Light – have become for me part of the fabric of the season, a way to observe these few liminal weeks between Ordinary Time and Christmas. As the days grow suddenly dark and short, I am watching for the light in both literal and metaphorical ways. These words help light the way for me, every year.
Links (not affiliate links) are to my favorite local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith.
What are you reading during this Advent season?
cakes, tea and dreams 
I’m revisiting Mitford too with Shepherds Abiding on CD…it’s so lovely to be reacquainted with my favorite cast of Southern characters. I’m going to check out a few of the others you recommended.
Love. I always enjoy some time with Father Tim.
I was so sad when I realized it was time for Advent and my copy of Watch For The Light was somewhere in my storage container. But then I saw a new collection of Advent readings: Goodness and Light. I’ve really been enjoying it! The Red Couch is reading The Irrational Season in January so I plan on starting that soon. It’ll be my first time and I can’t wait!
I’m so glad you found a new collection to enjoy! I’ll have to check that one out.
Jan Karon’s books are wonderful. I have most of them on audio CD and the narrator John McDonough has the most wonderful voice and makes you feel like Father Tim is talking especially to you. Winter Solstice is one of my favorites. Recently I bought several of Pilcher’s smaller paperbacks. I used to think they were a little repetitive, but now I appreciate their consistent plots and they are a joy to read when an over complicated, too technological life presses on me. Reading books before there were cell phones and computers is nice although I greatly appreciate my cell phone and computer and internet! Have a blessed Advent. I love the snow falling on your posting – very nice.
what a wonderful blog you write; I hope you don’t mind- I copied portions of it to my FB page to spur friends and relatives to check out some of the books and authors you note during the Christmas season. I see one I’d like to get for my husband and Kathleen Norris’ books are ones I recommend to everyone. I have two copies of Cloister Walk and pick copies up when I see them, for future gifts. Madeiline L’Engle was one of my Mom’s distant cousins and Mom has a letter from her. I remember reading her books when I was growing up and the books she wrote about her family members are on Mom’s bookshelf.
You’ll enjoy a series of books edited by Sarah Arthur, specifically for reading during the liturgical year —
Light Upon Light for Advent: http://www.amazon.com/Light-Upon-Literary-Christmas-Epiphany/dp/1612614191
At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Ordinary Time: http://www.amazon.com/At-Still-Point-Literary-Ordinary/dp/155725785X
Between Midnight and Dawn (Lent, Holy Week and Easter): http://www.amazon.com/Between-Midnight-Dawn-Literary-Eastertide