Want to receive a daily pairing of art and music in your inbox during this Advent and Christmas season? Sign up here. (If you already subscribe to the blog, you’re all set.) Posts will run from November 29, the day before the first Sunday of Advent, to Epiphany on January 6. I have also planned a few poems and roundups to go out during that time.
Advent is my favorite season of the church year because it taps into the deep yearning I feel for this world to be set right, for God’s beauty to burst into it with an irrefutable finality—no more sin, no more sorrow. The season is a chance to practice hope, something I sometimes struggle with, as I tend to lean more cynical.
The readings, art, and music of Advent sweep me up into the grand narrative of scripture, attuning me to the ways God has always been coming to us, but fixing me especially on how in Bethlehem of Judea, he came in a very special way—as a human being—and nurturing my excitement for his imminent return to earth to wed it to heaven.
Advent themes include:
- Lament and longing
- Hope, peace, joy, love
- Promise
- John the Baptist, especially his call to repentance in preparation for the coming kingdom
- The second coming of Christ (individual judgment, cosmic renewal)
- The parable of the ten bridesmaids
- The new heavens and the new earth
- Isaiah’s messianic prophecies: a virgin conceiving, swords into plowshares, a peaceable kingdom, a great light shining on a people in darkness, a flowering branch from the root of Jesse, etc.
- Pregnancy
- Mary’s song
- God with us
Based on these, I’ve curated dozens of visual and musical selections that I hope will make God’s story come alive to you in fresh ways. A thread installation, a soil-based performance, quilted detritus, a photograph from a war zone, confetti skies, stained glass oracles, a sixth-century apsidal mosaic from a Roman basilica, a medieval German New Year’s greeting by and for nuns, a Jemez Pueblo nativity in clay, a site-specific dance before a mural in Atlanta . . . these are some of the artworks that will be featured.
As for music, you’ll hear a classical setting of an Emily Dickinson poem, an adaptation of Psalm 27 by a Ugandan worship collective, a contemporary “Mass for Peace,” a Latin American song of the Annunciation, a dialogue between Mary and the infant Christ from Renaissance England, a responsory by the medieval polymath Hildegard of Bingen, offerings from many different singer-songwriters, and more.
Many of the songs will be drawn from my Advent playlist on Spotify, which I first published in 2020 but have been adding to each year:
If you know of anyone else who might be interested in an arts-based approach to Advent and Christmas devotions, please share with them the link to this post. You can peruse previous years’ entries to get a flavor:
Advent 2024 | Christmas 2024
Advent 2023 | Christmas 2023
Advent 2022 | Christmas 2022
Advent 2021 | Christmas 2021
Advent 2020 (abbreviated)
I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve curated for the start of this new liturgical year, as time unfolds across four hallowed weeks of expectant waiting and then Twelve Days of festivity and wonder.
Art & Theology 