The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets, 2024 Edition
Spiritual Friendship
Welcome to Advent 2024!
As I write this introduction to the 2024 edition of The Heart Turns Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints and Prophets, we are just past an election here in the United States. Many greeted the results with dismay, many with joy, and still others with tired resignation. For all, now comes a time of watching and waiting—a suspension between what was and what is to come. Advent was made for times such as these.
If you’ve been a part of this project in years past, then you may recall that my journey toward Advent becoming a treasured and sacred season began with my experience of the terrorist attacks in NYC on September 11, 2001—another time when we stood on the threshold between what once was and what had yet to come. As the holidays approached that year, I wondered how I could possibly deck the halls, sing the carols and buy the gifts when just south of my neighborhood there was a still-smoldering pile of rubble that had become a tomb for 2800 people. Was there any hope and peace left in a world gone mad? The eternal holiday question—How does a weary world rejoice?—seemed more pressing and fraught than at any point in my lifetime. My search for an answer led me straight to Advent.
Before 2001, I mistakenly thought Advent was merely the on-ramp to Christmas. It was those weeks I rushed around eating, drinking and buying too much, while reflecting little, if at all, on what any of this material and caloric frenzy had to do with the reason for the season. My sole Advent practice was popping open doors on a cute little Victorian-themed calendar to get at the milk chocolate inside.
But when, for the first time in years, I went to church that December 2001, an older couple I met at coffee hour patiently explained to me that, in fact, Advent kicks off a season of humility, quiet reflection and growth.
Intrigued—and more than a little skeptical that the true meaning of Advent could have been hiding in plain sight—I went to the library and checked out the only book they had on the season. It confirmed what the couple had told me. For pre-modern Christians—and modern Christians in the know—Advent was, indeed, a time to engage in quiet prayer, humble reflection, communal sharing and acts of service…if we accept the call.
That December, I began a simple Advent practice of daily prayer and candle-lighting. Improbably, those weeks, as the world held its breath while waiting to see what would happen next, ended up being some of the richest and most meaningful of my life.
Since then, and year-by-year, my Advent observance has grown and deepened. This is, in great part, thanks to the mystics, saints and prophets I eventually began reading, and who are always nudging me into deeper soul territory. One of my favorites is 20th century English mystic, and lover of Advent, Caryll Houselander who survived the London Blitz and went on to do healing work with other survivors as well as soldiers returning from the war. Of this season, she says,
Advent, like winter, is a time of hiddenness and darkness. The leaves are stripped from the trees, and the trees look dead. We know life is hid within them, but it’s hard to tell. One can only have hope if you remember Spring is coming. The same is true for us. We must have faith in the middle of the darkness…
Faith in the middle of darkness. I don’t know about you, but I need that now more than ever.
We are in a time of great change and uncertainty. In the words of the apostle Paul, creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth. Such as it ever was, such as it ever will be. The invitation of Advent is neither to resist the groaning and pain nor pretend they don’t exist, but to face them with courage, and follow where they point to the light of life and new birth—in the world and in our hearts.
This annual devotion was born out of my enthusiasm for sharing both Advent and the mystics, saints and prophets whose wisdom have given me so much. For those of you who have spent previous Advents with me, thank you for continuing along on the journey. For newcomers, welcome.
This year, daily emails will begin on December 1st and continue to Christmas Day. For the first time, they will have a theme: Spiritual Friendship.
Friendship has always been central to my life. I am blessed with many friends, from around the globe, from all backgrounds, and from their early twenties to their late nineties. Some friends I see often, others only rarely. One of my dearest friends, who lives in Europe, I haven’t seen in twenty-seven years, and our relationship has been conducted almost exclusively through letters, but I feel closer to her than ever. No matter how often or little we meet, I love all my friends and cherish the riches they bring to my life. Friends make me laugh and cry. They help carry what’s heavy. They see where I need to grow, usually before I do, and gently convey that. We sustain one another through all the joys and trials of life.
For this year’s edition, I will be featuring wisdom masters who are true exemplars of friendship. In many cases I will be pairing people who actually were friends in life. While I’m still refining the list, these are likely to include “holy fools” Francis and Clare of Assisi; Quaker mystic Rufus Jones and Martin Luther King mentor Howard Thurman; spiritual innovators Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross; Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson and Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung; Persian poets Rumi and Shams; blind and deaf author and activist Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan; as well as groundbreaking English mystics Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe.
Then there are others, like Therese of Lisieux, Corrie Ten Boom, and Aelred of Rievaulx who I haven’t paired but I wanted to include because their very lives embodied and modeled friendship and what it means to donate your life to the world.
I will be covering these spiritual friendships for the first three Advent weeks. Then, in the days before Christmas, I will turn to those who inhabit the Christmas story, like Mary, Joseph and the Magi.
These wildly diverse spiritual geniuses all have great gifts to share, if we’re willing to approach them with beginners’ minds full of curiosity and compassion.
Each day’s entry also includes a reflection for meditation, prayer, journaling, walking, listening to music, or however else you may practice. Some of these practices, though not all, will touch on our theme of spiritual friendship. The practices recommended here are intended to help unclog your spiritual pipes, but they are not ends in themselves. Rather, they are means of awakening and opening ourselves, of stretching our souls, so that we are better prepared to receive, embody and offer back to the world those quintessential Advent pillars: hope, love, joy and peace.
The question remains: How does a weary world rejoice? As I’ve said in years past, this guide does not attempt an answer. My hope is only that it helps get you comfortable with the question. Where answers are found, they will be yours alone, discovered along your own unique spiritual path. The mystics in this guide were masters at living the questions, finding their own hard-won answers—and for what remained unanswerable, letting the mystery be. I think you’ll find them good company on the Advent path.
Thank you for walking the Advent path with me. I wish you peace and every good, this season and all year long,
Greg Durham Austin, Texas November, 2024
Ready For More?
Read the Introduction to the 2022 edition to discover how Advent led me out of the spiritual dead-end I found myself in after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Find mystics, saints and prophets from years past in our Archive.
Contemplation In The City
Life In The City’s contemplative community meets regularly to practice sacred traditions like Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer. If you’re in Austin, consider joining one of our gatherings. Even if you are not in Austin, you may also find meaning in our monthly newsletter in which we wrestle with how to live a spiritually engaged life in the modern world. Read more here.
Holiday Happenings at Life In The City
All in-person events take place at 205 East Monroe St. in Austin, TX.
Dec. 8, 11:15 am: LITC’s original musical, Make Room In Your Heart.
Dec. 21, 6:00 pm: Blue Christmas, an intimate service for the longest night of the year.
Dec. 23, 6:00 pm: Christmas Eve-Eve, an LITC tradition!
Dec. 29, 11:15 am: Welcome 2025 with a fun service of music, cookies and coffee. Feedback
Catch a typo? Have suggestions for mystics, saints and prophets for a future year? Leave feedback in the Comments below or email Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.