12/8 Advent daybook, 10: a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us

My Advent daybook for these 24 days of waiting. Join me, won't you? (see previous Advent daybook 2015 posts here)

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look

Russian ornament source

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read

2 Peter 1:2-15 (MSG) : Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. 

all readings for the day: Psalm 126; Isaiah 19:18-25; 2 Peter 1:2-15

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pray

God of timeless grace, you fill us with joyful expectation. Make us ready for the message that prepares the way, that with uprightness of heart and holy joy we may eagerly await the kingdom of your Son, Jesus Christ, who reigns with you and the Holy Spirit , now and forever. Amen. (source)

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listen

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Rain for Roots

(Also, feel free to listen with me to my ever-evolving Advent playlist or a growing Advent Orchestral/Choral playlist on Spotify.)

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do

spend some relaxing time with a friend today

Read this poem (via Topology)

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.
Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.

Celebrate today.

Judyth Hill“Wage Peace,” written on September 11, 2001

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(see all Advent daybook posts from 2014 here)