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Featured Book for November 2024
Listen for the voice of God.
If you approach this Advent season waiting for something–in your life, in your family or community, or in a fractured world–you are not alone. This season reminds us that our waiting is not wasted. Even in our longest nights, divine work endures. What if we were free enough to do the same?
Drawing on lectionary scripture readings from the Old and New Testaments and the voices of Black and Brown modern-day prophets, author Shannon Dycus offers reflections for each day of the season. Her meditations stretch open possibilities for faithfulness during silence, ambivalence, doubt, and unknowing. This Advent, accept the invitation to witness and know the presence of God amid waiting. Give voice to freedom, grace, struggle, and beauty–to see again the ways that God emerges in this inward season.
1. Shannon introduces The Holy in the Night by describing how we spend so much of our lives in waiting rooms both literal and metaphorical. She says that we “become incapable of waiting well.” Name some things you find it difficult to wait for.
2. What could it look like for you to learn to wait and why is Advent an especially ripe season for this?
3. On page 26, Day 1, Shannon quotes Zora Neal Hurtston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. “They seem to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God." What do you think Hurston meant by this line?
1. In Day 2's reflections about breathing, Shannon extends an invitation to "journey into what is changing in our atmosphere, and into how we might be open to new patterns of living and breathing." p.26. What does this invitation mean to you and how can you begin to open up to new patterns of living and breathing?
2. In Day 6's sermonette on Job and his wife (p.34-38), Shannon reflected on Job’s wife’s words, “Curse God and die.” Share your thoughts about those honest words, and if you've ever thought or said similar?
3. Day 7’s reflection quotes Audre Lorde saying, "...another kind of power is growing, tempered and enduring, grounded within the realities of what I am in fact doing. An open-eyed assessment and appreciation of what I can and do accomplish, using who I am and who I most wish to be. To stretch as far as I can go and relish what is satisfying rather than sad." p.41 How can you honor your capacity and be satisfied at what you did?
1. In Day 8’s entry Shannon writes about the wilderness and defines it “as one of the purest settings, holding an ecosystem of living and dying organisms. A wilderness is messy and unkept, allowed to grow in its most natural state without human interruption.” What do you think the value of wilderness in your life is and why you should embrace it?
2. On Day 14 (page 64-65) Shannon describes Advent as womb-like where it is a time and space we can transition to new ways of being. “Birthing the holy” is a beautiful image for this time of year. How are we all invited to give life to the holy?
3. On Day 17 (p 70-72) Shannon explored the Hebrew word for blessing. “To be blessed, we are called to understand something different about who we are. It is a different sense of time than a moment or a season; blessedness is about what will be true in and throughout our lives as we walk with God.” What is the spirituality of blessing to you, and how can it connect you more deeply to Advent?
1. On Day 19 (p.80) Shannon writes about the book, This Bridge Called My Back, an anthology of radical women of color. She says, "People in dark places can be powerful; they can articulate bold faith, and they can act in creative and sacred ways… I believe God blesses their darkness. I believe God rushes to the darkness to sustain the sacred in it. I believe God's promises begin in the darkest places.” Share a time in which you felt blessed in a dark place in your life.
2. On page 99 Shannon writes about how the story of Christmas meets us in new ways each year: “What makes this story new each year is our own resonance. . . They are each enfleshed, meaning they engage the material parts of our lives—our bodies, our land, our culture, our experience, our commitments. God comes to us within each of these parts of the Christmas narrative—in the familiarity and resonance of our lives and bodies.” How does this inner resonance make the story new whenever you meet it?
3. Day 29 (pages 111-112) describes what grace means, a “symbol of abundance for us as Christians.” In a world that continually reinforces our scarcity and lack, how do you encounter grace in yourself and others?
