Introducing "Another Advent Reflection"

“Advent…is a season that looks unflinchingly at the evil that now besets us, and stubbornly insists its days are numbered.” –Bonnie Kristian

Cece and I have celebrated Advent for years, and worked hard to distill some of our practices and thinking into last year’s Advent zine. We’re proud of the way we created an open-and-go jumping off place for anyone who wants to develop a meaningful spiritual practice in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Yet, we had more we wanted to say and more to explore. So, we made another, all-new Advent zine!

This year, we collaborated with our friend Ash Rowan, and once-again, partnered with The ARCH-HIVE. The new zine works perfectly on its own or as a companion to the zine we made last year. We explore the same themes–hope, peace, joy, and love–with all NEW quotes, songs, scriptural passages, questions, and Mormon Saints. Ash provided all-new, original illustrations for the zine, which are stunning (watch for them to become available as printable coloring pages for kids soon!) We also added an appendix of ideas for involving young kids (partially inspired by our own trial and error from last year on how to incorporate our children).

Order your zines by Nov 21 to make sure they arrive in time for the first Sunday of Advent (Dec 3)! If it doesn't, the Arch-Hive can provide a digital PDF. Physical copies of the zine are $5 (to cover the cost of printing and to pay Ash for their hard work in creating the art).

Throughout the zine, we take inspiration from Mormon saints like Ruffin Bridgefort, Julia Mavimbela, Gladys Knight, and Abel Paez, and from writers and thinkers like Rachel Held Evans, Morgan Harper Nichols, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Sarah Bessey, Diana Butler Bass, bell hooks, Blaire Ostler, Mary Oliver, and Mister Rogers. Our hope is that wherever you find yourself in the wide wonderful spiritual wilderness, you will feel welcome to worship with us.

We’re indebted to countless thinkers and good people for the meaning that Advent brings us. We’re humbled that we can do some small work of paying forward that debt by sharing with you the wisdom, insight, and most importantly, the questions that guide our own spiritual practice of Advent. As you join us in facing the darkness of the world head on, may we draw strength from each other and choose hope anyway, create peace anyway, find joy anyway, and build love anyway.

Let us allow the spirit of the season to run through us, as we look unflinchingly at all the evil that now besets us, and stubbornly insist that its days are numbered!