Ep16. Embrace the Contrast — Three EASY Ways to Elevate Advent
VIDEO VERSION
Audio Version
Episode Description
In this episode of Elevate Ordinary we share THREE simple things you can embrace in order to observe a more fruitful and prayerful Advent in preparation for Christmas. We also have fun recounting some of trials and tribulations that involved in the development of our own Advent traditions. Enjoy!
Notes
Links
Nick and Alina’s rendition of O Come Emmanuel is stunning. Add it to your Advent playlist! http://nickandalina.com/music
Our favorite CANDLES to set the mood for advent (affiliate link): FrostBeard Studio
Christmas Eve mix. This is what we put our children to sleep with on Christmas Eve in anticipation of the birth of Christ into their hearts: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRaXq0jpW1dDb-g8N87vvNpBQkDchLv8l
Hallow App for Advent silence and simplicity in prayer: http://hallow.app/awaken
Pray
Advent Prayer
By Henri J.M. Nouwen
Lord Jesus,
Master of both the light and the darkness,
send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.
We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.
We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us.
We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom.
We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence.
We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light.
To you we say, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
Amen.
Quotes
“The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply, 'Create silence'.” - Soren Kierkegaard
”Then, of course, he gets to know this woman’s family and whole circle. Could you not see that the very house she lives in is one that he ought never to have entered? The whole place reeks of that deadly odour. The very gardener, though he has only been there five years, is beginning to acquire it. Even guests, after a weekend visit, carry some of the smell away with them. The dog and the cat are tainted with it. And a house full of the impenetrable mystery. We are certain (it is a matter of first principles) that each member of the family must in some way be making capital out of the others—but we can’t find out how. They guard as jealously as the Enemy Himself the secret of what really lies behind this pretense of disinterested love. The whole house and garden is one vast obscenity. It bears a sickening resemblance to the description one human writer made of Heaven: ‘the regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence’.
Music and silence—how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell—though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express—no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise—Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress.” - C. S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters
"There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is." - Chesterton
Books
“The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise” by Cardinal Sarah Amazon book link
“Screwtape Letters” by CS Lewis Amazon book link
