A MESSAGE FROM REV. LINDSEY ALTVATER CLIFTON: A SACRED NEW CHAPTER
Dear ones,
I hope you and yours have a lovely celebration of gratitude and time for meaningful connection this Thanksgiving! We are turning the corner into Advent, and Christmas will be here before we know it.
We’ll begin our Advent celebrations with Hanging
of the Greens this Saturday (Nov. 30). Beginning at 9:00 a.m., we’ll deck the church halls for our holiday season. Doughnuts, coffee, and cocoa will be provided, and many hands make light decorating work! We’ll have jobs for all ages, so please come help us make things merry and bright. We plan to be done by 1:00 p.m. at the very latest, but hopefully earlier.
Then on Sunday, Dec. 1, we’ll enjoy intergenerational Advent festivities and fellowship between our two worship services. Beginning around 10:00 a.m., we invite everyone to join us for crafts and fun for all ages or for a cup of cocoa and good conversation!
Like in recent years, we are using liturgical resources from A Sanctified Art, a talented group of mostly Presbyterian clergywomen, to guide our Advent and Christmas journey. This year’s theme is Words for the Beginning.
I invite you to read their description about the series and the accompanying devotional below, and I look forward to journeying with each of you toward the birth of Light and Love into our weary world.
Blessings for the waiting,
Lindsey
Advent is a season of endings and beginnings. As the calendar year comes to a close, a new church year begins. Christ’s birth ushers us into new ways of living and loving; and yet, the world as we know it spins madly on. In many ways, pregnant Mary was surrounded by endings – large and small, personal and political.
But Mary proclaimed hope in a God who was and is making all things new. Christ’s birth offered a beautiful new beginning for shepherds and Magi alike – all the while, King Herod tried to bring Christ’s story to an end. When we ourselves navigate seasons filled with endings and beginnings, we need reminders. We need words that can feel like steady ground, like a path for our feet to find as we step forward into the unknown.
This devotional is shaped around several reminders we all need from time to time: you are a blessing; we can’t go alone; do the good that is yours to do; hope is worth the risk; love knows your name; don’t forget to laugh; the road isn’t straight. These reminders root us in the fundamental truths of our faith.
Many of them are life lessons we teach to children – lessons that adults continue to learn and relearn. They may resemble the blessings we impart to loved ones during special ceremonies like weddings or baptisms. And so, we invite you to move through this Advent season as if you are entering a sacred new chapter, holding fast to the reminders that will bolster you for the journey ahead.
Read, look, and sing your way through the pages of this devotional. Each week offers art, reflections, poetry, and hymns to give you strength, courage, and grace. As you journey through this season, may you find words for belovedness and hope. May you find words for beginning again. For no matter what you are facing, no matter what this new day brings, love is your beginning.