the Web Editors

"It is now, at Advent, that I am given the chance to suspend all expectation...and instead to revel in the mystery." - Jerusalem Jackson Greer Jerusalem Jackson Greer,  A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together + Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail

God of prophetic promise, your radiance penetrates our wintry night. Come to us in tender compassion, that we too may walk the path of peace in holiness and without fear. We pray in the name of the One whose birth a heavenly host heralded. Amen - From Take Our Moments and Our Days: Advent through Pentecost

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord." - Luke 2:9-11 + Sign up to receive our social justice verse of the day via e-mail

Every generous act of giving is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. Source of every perfect gift, to ful?ll your own purpose you gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of ?rst fruits of your creatures. - From Take Our Moments and Our Days: Advent through Pentecost

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. - Isaiah 7:14 + Sign up to receive our social justice verse of the day via e-mail

"The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before ... What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon."   - Jan L. Richardson Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas + Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail

"One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God’s grace that gives us that faith." - Michelle Blake Michelle Blake, The Tentmaker + Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail

"A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, … and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”  - Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer + Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail

God of love, may we praise you wholeheartedly for the blessings we experience in our lives and recognize these as part of the fulfillment of your promise. We pray for trust in God's promise of the fullness of life, especially in times we feel lost, directionless, hopeless, and sad. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.