Creating Advent Devotions

Confession time:  I've been less pleased than I could have been with the last couple of years' Treehouse Advent Devotions, including last year's Instruments of Peace.  In trying to get away from "the usual" things like "a is for angel" or the Jesse Tree stories (which we did enjoy the year that we used Ann's Glorious Coming, which will be available in an updated version at the end of this month), we seem to have majored on the "solitude and silence" aspects of Advent (all good too), but lost some of the enjoyment we had when we did the MCC-based around-the-world calendar four years ago.  (I wish MCC would post another one.)  It is an easy step to get away from cartoon characters and daily chocolate; it's more difficult to find words, music, Scriptures and more that will really speak to the hearts of those listening around the wreath during the month before Christmas.  Especially when we think we've heard it all before...but cherish hearing it all again.

This year I've stewed and procrastinated, even after deliberately scooping a handful of books at the thrift shop that I thought might work.  I liked Chuck Swindoll's classic Improving Your Serve; it's easy to pick and choose from, and includes extra bits and pieces like this poem by Wilbur Rees:

“Three Dollars Worth of God”

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man
or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

— Wilbur Rees

There's probably enough just in that one poem to equal several days of Advent thought.

I also found a copy of Lee Warren's little book The Experience of Christmas.  Oh, that one would be a relief in some ways--it's all THERE.  Family prayers, suggested activities, and everything

Finally I've been looking at something more unusual:  Joanne Shetler's book And the Word Came with Power, about her mission experiences with the Balangao people in the Philippines. (It's also used in the Sonlight Curriculum.)  A friend mentioned this story to me earlier in the year, and when I saw the book at the thrift store I picked it up just to read.  It struck me that, if you had time to read through its hundred-and-fifty-or-so pages during Advent, you would experience coming of Christ from the perspective of those who, hearing it for the first time, knew that it was the Good News they had been waiting for.  I would love to do this with my family...it's unexpected, and it is truly powerful.  If I'm hesitating, it may only be because it will be a big commitment in a busy month where we may honestly not all be together around the table as many nights as we'd like to be.  It's a lot of reading, a lot of listening, a lot of squirming.

The decision?  I haven't made it yet.  I'm leaning towards Lee Warren's book for nightime devotions...but wishing to do the Balangao story as well.  There might be a way we could do both--maybe working the second one into school time during December, although that would leave the Apprentice and Mr. Fixit out of things...

and this is the last problem: if we used either Swindoll's or Shetler's books, I'd post a list of the readings and of what we're doing with them...that would be our gift to Treehouse readers.  If we went with the already-prepped book, I feel like I'd be coming back to you a bit empty-handed.  It's a bit like those families who have announced that ALL GIFTS this year will be HANDMADE.  I love to make things too, but being hit with an ultimatum like that is a bit severe.  In the end, is it about handmade or not?  No.  Handwritten, hand-posted?  What matters is that we do prepare our hearts to receive the Good News...for the first time, for the tenth or the forty-fifth or the ninetieth time.  What matters is that it is still true and powerful.  What matters is that we thank God for that together.