Tag: advent

Daily Short Text Messages for Advent

Daily Short Text Messages for Advent

Marjorie George

Advent begins Sunday, Nov. 30. In this season of preparation for the coming of God into the world in human form, we are invited to make space in our lives, even if just for a moment, each day, to consider what it means that God’s love is available to us every minute of every day of our lives.

The Wisdom Years offers a daily (Mon through Fri) short text message sent to your cell phone during Advent, a thought to carry with you each day during what can be a hectic time.

If you would like to receive this text message, send your name, email, and cell phone number to Marjorie George at marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com.

And also – for more Advent prayers, meditations, and inspirations we recommend:

Throw off the Darkness from Monasteries of the Heart. Daily practices  will include scripture, good works, psalms, embodied movements, lectio, artistic responses, and holy leisure. Must have a Monasteries of the Heart account.

Advent Devotionals from Everything Happens with Kate Bowler.  Each day receive a short scripture, a reflection, and a blessing. Signup by subscribing to Kate’s substack account.

And His Name Shall be Called Advent Devotional from Upper Room. Reflect on the four names that reveal the promise of God’s presence in Isaiah 9:6: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

Advent Word from the Episcopal Church. An inspirational online Advent calendar featuring a daily prompt word selected from the Sunday Lectionary readings.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov. 17, 2025

Marjorie George

A monthly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey. From The Wisdom Years.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and to pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
-John Muir
Found at Well for the Journey

Advent Resources

In her wisdom, the Church sets aside the four weeks before Christmas to help us prepare for the incredulous coming of God into the world in human form. We hope one or more of  these Advent resources will help to slow your soul as you ready yourself to receive him.

Throw off the Darkness from Monasteries of the Heart. Daily practices  will include scripture, good works, psalms, embodied movements, lectio, artistic responses, and holy leisure. Must have a Monasteries of the Heart account.

Advent Devotionals from Everything Happens with Kate Bowler.  Each day receive a short scripture, a reflection, and a blessing. Signup by subscribing to Kate’s substack account.

And His Name Shall be Called Advent Devotional from Upper Room. Reflect on the four names that reveal the promise of God’s presence in Isaiah 9:6: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

Advent Word from the Episcopal Church. An inspirational online Advent calendar featuring a daily prompt word selected from the Sunday Lectionary readings.

Daily Text Messages from The Wisdom Years. A short inspirational message to your cell phone Mon-Fri, Dec 1 through 24.  Send your name, email address and cell phone number to marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com

Love Beyond Death

Death does not separate us from those we love, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. Our faith tells us that we are in living union with each other inside the Body of Christ. “The real intent of our prayers and ritual celebrations for the dead is to continue to be in a more deliberate communication of life with them,” he says.

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

The Day I Learned Giving

They were in line to buy the circus tickets, standing right behind a large family of eight children. But when the father of that family got to the ticket counter to buy the tickets, he did not have enough money. Read what happened next.

Read the story.

From Awakin.

Contemplation Is Christianity

“Contemplation is not about escaping life but entering it more fully,” says Richard Rohr. It is not a separate path or a unique calling. It is Christianity itself, lived with depth and honesty.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Dec. 10, 2024

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.

-Og Mandino, quoted in A Better Way to Live by Craig Lock

Joseph and the Christmas Story

Like Joseph, stepfather of Jesus, sometimes we need to be willing to live righteously and follow the rules but be open to mystery. “What does one do when God breaks into one’s life in new, previously unimaginable ways?” asks Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser blog.

Sharing Someone Else’s Wound

When have you put yourself in danger to save another person’s life? When has someone done that for you? In World War II a Polish man purposely contracted a disease so he could share his medicine with a Jewish woman in a concentration camp.

Read the story.

From Awakin.

Letting God Be God

Explaining God is impossible and unnecessary. “If God is always Mystery, then God is always in some way the unfamiliar, beyond what we’re used to, beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we can explain or understand,” says Richard Rohr.

Read the reflection.

From  Center for Action and Contemplation.

Kindness

A kindness from a total stranger reminded Joyce Rupp of how often one kindness brings forth others. Like watermelons whose seeds produce more watermelons.

Read the reflection. 

From Joyce Rupp.

If Only

We all have times when we think changing one thing would change everything. If only my boss would give me a chance, we say. If only the children would behave. If only we had more money. If only Messiah would come, thought the Hebrews of Palestine. And he did. And it was they who needed to change.

Read or listen to the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Dec. 3, 2024

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.

-Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance 
Found in Well for the Journey

Preparing For Advent: Watch For The Light

“Christ did not just come as a moral tune-up, self-improvement guru, or spiritual teacher,” writes Deacon Joanna Seibert, quoting from an Advent yearly favorite Watch for the Light. Jesus brings the presence of God within us, which can break through and be born in our hearts today. Watch for the Light is a collection of short essays from some of the best spiritual wisdom over the centuries.

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

Redemption Song

We focus on repentance during Advent, but Br. Jim Woodrum calls us also, maybe even more, to the redemption that Christ’s coming offers us. This Advent, “let us heed the call of the prophets,” says Br. Woodrum, “turning towards the suffering of this world, resolving to accept the call to communicate the light, life, and love of our Creator.”

Read the essay.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Story…Our Aging Superpower

We have something to offer as we age – our stories.  “Our years give us perspective and experience, and we have an essential role to offer as storycatchers and storytellers committed to peace- making, reconciliation, and community repair,” says Christina Baldwin.

Read the essay.

From Sageing International.

Subverting Anxiety with Hope

“If to be alive today is to breathe the air of an anxious world, to be a Christian today is to subvert that anxiety with hope,” says Michaela O’Donnell. That is our job this Advent – to bring hope into a hopeless world.

Read the reflection.

From Fuller Seminary De Pree Center.

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov. 19, 2024

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

When people enter into difficult conversations with honest love – able to deeply disagree and be disagreed with, without questioning the human dignity of the other – they have chosen to what they belong: love, reconciliation, and God. 

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
Read More

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

This is the Way, Walk in It

“For a path to be a path, you have to be able to see it, more or less, or at least catch glimpses of it, every so often,” says Br. James Koester. “And for that to happen, somebody needs to have walked it ahead of you.” Are you leaving a path for those coming behind you?

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

We Cannot Be Self-Made

We belong to each other; we are created in part by our relationships with each other. The African word for it is ubuntu. “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished.”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

The Tower of Babel

It was at the building of the tower of Babel when suddenly people began to speak in many different languages such that they could no longer understand each other. We no longer speak the same language in this country, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “We can no longer understand each other on virtually every key issue. We no longer share any common truths. Rather, we all have our own truth, our own individual language.” (Painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder created in 1563. Public domain.)

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

The Good News You Might Have Missed

Yes, it’s scary out there. Yep, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But now for some good news.

Watch the video or read the transcript.

Found in Daily Good.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov 12, 2024

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

At the deepest levels of our hearts we are all aching, for each other and for the same eternally Loving One who calls us. It would be well, I think, if we could acknowledge this more often to one another.  
-Gerald May, Will and Spirit
Found in Well for the Journey

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

Our Vocation to be Bilingual and Ambidextrous

St. Paul thought that the second coming of Christ would happen in Paul’s lifetime. Clearly it did not. How are we to live, then, in this secular world until we come to eternal life?

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

 

Lessons From A Sunrise

What do you expect from the morning sunrise? What if it’s cloudy and hazy?

Read the brief reflection.

From Interrupting the Silence.

God’s Love Includes Imperfection 

We are living in love if we can maintain a daily yes, says Richard Rohr. “That doesn’t mean we don’t recognize injustice and stand against it, but we don’t let our hearts become hardened and our minds become rigid in its judgments.”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Campaign for kindness

“Choosing kindness isn’t about avoiding our differences but navigating them with respect and compassion,” says a campaign that seeks to navigate faith and politics in a congregation with divided political views.

Read the reflection or listen to the NPR interview.

Found in Daily Good.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov 5, 2024

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

In chaos, I choose love.
In conflict, I choose love.
Even to the end, I will choose love.
I will not save the world,
but I will help the world;
I will be a force for good.

-Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light (www.unfoldinglight.net)

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

Trusting in Christ’s Peace

We need a little good news. Like hearing that however bad the storms of life become, Christ is there to calm the waters and bring peace. “Peace” and “be still” can be our watchwords also, says Bishop Barbara Harris.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Intelligence versus Wisdom

What is the difference between being smart and being wise? “Wisdom is intelligence that’s colored by understanding,” says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “When intelligence is not informed by empathy, what it produces will generally not contribute to the common good.”

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

Standing in the Gap

How do we stay hopeful in the face of despair and disillusionment—especially when politics threaten to tear us in two? In this podcast, Kate Bowler speaks with Parker Palmer, a writer, teacher, and activist. Palmer brings wisdom from the years of living in this world without letting the bad in it overcome the good.

Listen to the podcast.

From Kate Bowler.

Growing Older

Getting older is about learning how to let go, says Bishop Steven Charleston – even letting go of names and memories we can no longer recall. He places memories with the Holy Spirit, to be recalled on the other side.

Read the short reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Dec. 5, 2023

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

Learning how to be still,
to really be still and let life happen –
that stillness becomes a radiance.

-Morgan Freeman, actor and producer
From Well for the Journey

Advent One

Give us grace to cast away
the things designed to lead astray,
the things that of necessity
distract our hearts most easily,

Read the rest of the poem.

From Joanna Seibert’s blog.

Sympathy, Empathy And Compassion

Compassion, says Jay Litvin, is not the same as sympathy or empathy. It is not limited as a response to suffering, but rather is a response to life itself. It is a quality that one would live with “in every situation, with every person, rather than only with one who is in distress.”

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

A Deeper Lightness

In the second half of life, even though there is suffering, there is now “a changed capacity to hold it creatively and with less anxiety,” says Richard Rohr, adding, “In the second half of life, it is good just to be a part of the general dance. We do not have to stand out, make defining moves, or be better than anyone else on the dance floor.” 

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Sabbath Moment

How hard it was for the little boy to accept that he would not get the Lionel train set for Christmas this year. He had so wanted it, but father was in the hospital and money was tight. Then he discovered that the whole word is a Lionel train set.

Read the reflection.

From Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment.

Finding God in Community

God is not, first of all, a formula, a dogma, a creedal statement, or a metaphysics that demands our assent,” says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “God is a flow of living relationships, a trinity, a family of life that we can enter, taste, breathe within, and let flow through us.”

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser’s blog.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Dec 13

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see.

-Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Found at well for the Journey

Dec. 13 – St. Lucy Day

In Sweden and Norway, December 13 is the day to remember St. Lucy.  The eldest girl in the family dresses in a white dress with a red sash and brings saffron buns and coffee to her family. On her head is a crown of candles that shines light on one of the daarkest days of the year.

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

More about St. Lucy.

Imprisoned By Our Blinders

“Are you the one?” John the Baptist wants to know. “Or are we to wait for another?” Has John’s initial enthusiasm been blunted? Is he looking through blinders? Are we?

Read the sermon from the Rev. Mike Marsh.

From Interrupting the Silence.

Finding Home in God’s Flock

Maybe sheep aren’t stupid after all. Maybe they are just easily distracted and prone to wandering off on their own. How like them we can be. But, going rogue often leads to death and destruction says Br. Todd Blackham. Instead we need to listen for the voice of the shepherd.

Read or listen to the sermon.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

The Mysticism of the Crib

For Fr. Ron Rolheiser, the Christmas crib with the sleeping baby Jesus recalls feelings of safety and snugness. We find the same when we lean on Jesus.

Read the reflection.

From Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

Faith in Divine Presence

The Rev. Adam Bucko brought all of his skills to his ministry with homeless youth. Then he got himself out of it and God’s energy took over.

Read the reflection.

From the Center for Action and Contemplation.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.

Gathered Wisdom, Dec. 6

Marjorie George

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

Listen to the long stillness:
New life is stirring
New dreams are on the wing
New hopes are being readied …
God is at work.
This is the Season of Promise.

-Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas

From Well for the Journey

Advent is a season of hope and expectation. A time set aside to proclaim once again that our God is still with us, still ready to lead us to peace and reconciliation, if we are willing.

Our Advent gift to you is a daily text message of inspiration and encouragement. If you would like to receive this daily text on your cell phone, send your name and cell phone number to Marjorie George at marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com.

Stand Up, Lean In

Advent, says Bishop David Reed of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, calls us to a “brief pilgrimage of active inactivity. . .  a sanctuary of sanity.” He offers the practice of “Advent Judo” to live the season.

Read the reflection.

From the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.

Advent: Curing Fire by Fire

We are born congenitally dis-eased, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. There is a fire that burns within us, and we have two choices of how to meet it. To quench it we can choose between the world’s definition of success, or we can recognize our longing for God.

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

Let Us Pause and Be Grateful

The lowly stone cutter longed to be more powerful and important. Until he found out he already was.

Read the reflection.

The Terry Hershey blog.

An Evolving Faith

It may surprise us to learn that our God does not hate all the people we do. Or that we may have something to learn from others, or that revolutionary thinking may move us forward as opposed to our remaining stagnant.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Longing for Christ

It’s easy to lapse into nostalgia at this time of year. We may remember – or think we remember –  Christmases past of a happy family going to church long after dark and singing Silent Night with lighted candles. But our faith is not about nostalgia; it is about believing the promises of God.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

More about SSJE.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.