Advent Practices: Considering our Earthiness

Last updated on: December 17, 2010 at 10:52 am by Guest Contributor

6 Comments

Advent Practices: Considering our Earthiness 2010-12-17T10:52:16+00:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Christine Valters Paintner, of the virtual monastery Abbey of the Arts, has been offering a lovely series of Advent Reflections on the Earth and Creation for us this month as part of her Seasons of the Soul column at Patheos. Here is her latest, for the fourth Sunday of Advent:

Advent Practices: Grace of the Earth

When despair for the world grows in me . . .
I come into the peace of wild things . . .
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-Wendell Berry, excerpted from “The Peace of Wild Things”

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, / You are surely lost.

-David Wagoner, excerpted from “Lost”

In the scriptures for this fourth week of Advent we hear in the gospels that Joseph is told in a dream to care for Mary who will give birth to the holy presence. The story of Advent and Christmas is essentially about God becoming enfleshed in the earthiness of the world. God enters creation and blesses our embodied lives. We are called this fourth week to consider the element of earth as an invitation to greater intimacy with nature and to remember our own earthiness. In Cherokee tradition, earth is connected to the hour of midnight and the season of winter. We were created from clay and we will one return as dust and ash. My mother died in the season of autumn and I found my daily walks through fall and winter to offer me tremendous solace as I witnessed the world descend into her own place of stillness and rest. Winter embraces the land, and trees surrender their leaves in an act of holy supplication, extending their arms upward in prayer. I see in those bare branches, the beauty of things brought back to their essence.

I invite you to reconsider some of our traditional religious categories this week. What if we honored creation as the original icon revealing the face of the Holy One to us? What if the seasons could be a sacred text, as the poet William Stafford writes a “scripture of leaves”? How might tending to world’s own rhythm of rising and falling reveal new dimensions to our own journeys?

What if we gave reverence to the forest as the original cathedrals? In Muir Woods of Northern California, there is a grove of ancient redwoods called Cathedral Grove because of the awe their size and ancient presence inspire. And yet it is our sacred spaces which emulate the silence and luminosity of great gatherings of trees rather than the other way around.

Last week I described a story from the Russian Orthodox tradition about a young man who comes to Fr. Seraphim to learn about prayer of the heart and what he learns from the ocean. He is also sent to meditate like a mountain, learning stability of posture and grounding, and the experience of calmness and stability. Then he was sent to meditate like a poppy taking his mountain wisdom with him. From the poppy he learned to turn himself toward the light and to orient his meditation practice from his inner depths toward radiance. The poppy also taught him both uprightness and the ability to bend with the wind. And while the mountain taught him about the eternal, the poppy taught him about the finitude of our days as the blossom began to wither. He learned that meditation means experiencing the eternal in each fleeting moment.

As we prepare to celebration God’s birth into the world in a few days, and perhaps sing the words “Let Heaven and Nature Sing,” let us respond to earth’s song calling us back to intimate and loving mutuality. This year let our preparation for Christmas be one of wonder and delight in the ways we can foster earth’s fruitfulness. Let us respond with open hearts to creation’s invitation to radical care.

Practices for Advent:

If you have an altar for Advent, add some stone, leaves, pine cones, or flowers you have gathered on a walk to honor the element of earth.
Consider a meditation with clay on your own earthiness. Take a piece of clay (or even Play-Doh) and begin to shape it in your hands. Call to mind the story of creation when God lovingly molds the dust into human form and breathes life into this being. Then remember the story of God as Potter and we as the clay from the prophet Jeremiah. As you continue to work with the clay in your hands, notice the ways it both yields and resists your pressure. Reflect in your own life on the places where you experience yielding and where you encounter resistance. What might the clay have to teach you about these? Allow a shape to emerge and spend some time listening for its invitation to you.
Exterior landscapes shape our interior landscapes and the ways we understand our spiritual journey. Think of the way the desert played a pivotal role in early Christianity with its harsh, barrenness as a call to radical simplicity of heart. What does the landscape you live in reveal to you about God’s call in your life? How are you shaped by the geography of your world including hills, valleys, plains, rivers, oceans, gardens, or forests? What are the invitations of the earth to you?

Christine Valters Paintner, Ph.D., is a Benedictine Oblate and the online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery without walls offering online classes and resources in contemplative practice and creative expression. She is the author of several books including the latest, Water, Wind, Earth and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements (Ave Maria Press). Read her column, Seasons of the Soul, every week at Patheos.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 15, 2010

Preaching on the Magi and Other Questions for Brent Landau

Next Post

December 20, 2010 In the Bleak Midwinter: Advent Waiting

Recent Comments

6 Comments | Leave a Comment

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Author Interviews Battle Over the Body and Blood of Christ Bearing Beauty Book Reviews Christian Education christian spirituallity christianity Christmas Church Church Leadership Contemplation Creation Care Death and Dying Death Penalty Disruptive Change Disruptors Series Easter Education Evolution and Faith Future of Progressive Christianity Gun Violence Health & Wellness Holy Week Interfaith Israel-Palestine Leading Differently Lent LGBTQ Living with Cancer Meditations on the Cross Mental Illness millennials Mimetic Mondays Monday Meditations Movie Reviews New Monasticism Pando Populus Parenting Patheos 10+1 Q&A Series PC(USA) Politics Pop Culture Practical Theology Series Prayer progressive christian Race Relations Reformation religion Religion and Politics Religion in America Rethink Church Social Justice Spirituality Spirituality of the Body Stump a Scholar Technology and Faith Thanksgiving Theodicy Trust Me Church Uncategorized Why I'm Still Christian Youth Ministry

Select a Month December 2025 April 2025 January 2025 September 2023 September 2022 May 2022 February 2022 January 2022 November 2021 October 2021 May 2021 February 2021 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 June 2019 March 2019 January 2019 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many years between Abraham and David?

Select your answer to see how you score.

1000 years 600 years 800 years 1200 years