The Stubborn Hope of Advent

a writing prompt for you, especially if you are grieving

Welcome to Writing in Company. Each week I share some words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points for you to write about what matters. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation or prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. You can always look back through the archive for more ideas. Grab your pen and paper, and let your words loose on the page.

I started two workshops yesterday, about using writing as a way to carry grief during the season of Advent. It’s always a privilege to share writing space with folks who are grieving, and who bravely write and share their words. Inevitably, our time together goes quickly, and I never get to offer everything I have in mind.

Like this:

The Christian liturgical season of Advent is a time of preparation, of waiting, and of stubborn hope. The prophets spoke about the time when God would break into our world to put things right. They gave us a language for Advent, and for all those who weep and watch for light to emerge in the velvety dark. They dreamed about justice and peace, offering a vision of what’s still to come to the grieving and the groaning across the globe.

Grief too, holds onto a stubborn hope. We wait, watch, anticipate and dream. Our longings and hopes twirl around in us, moving from practically wordless ones like “I hope it hurts less someday” to the farther-along grief work of “I hope I can honor my loved one today.”

When we grieve during Advent, we join the long line of those who suffer and keep going, step by step, day by day, season by season, trusting that there is something more to come, beyond what we can see.

In her Advent devotional for this year (it’s free!) Kate Bowler says:

“Advent hope is gritty. It shirks all false optimism. It is hope as protest. Hope in the face of impossibilities. As writer Barbara Brown Taylor said, ‘whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”” ¹

I’ve preached that idea before on Easter—that new life starts in the dark, with no one there to witness it. Turning it into an Advent thought gives me a little pang in my own grief gut. Something about the image of Mary, heavy with Jesus on the way to Bethlehem, reminds me that my Jack lived his best in the dark of my womb. Then something went wrong there—a creeping infection, and a sudden rush into the glaring lights of an OR, and four days of beeping machines in a bright NICU. My what-ifs always circle back to the dark of my womb. What if…what if…what if…

Still, years of Advent hope later, I can see the dim edges of a new life that started there in the dark. If I squint, it looks like the pages of a journal, and Zoom squares with other grievers in them, and writing prompts winging their way to whomever needs them. That’s Jack’s legacy, birthed in me through stubborn hope I didn’t know I had. I had no language for it at the time. I had to wait and watch for it through long years, like the prophets advised.

My workshops remind me that grief is both universal and particular. We will all wrestle with loss. We hold collective grief for those who suffer. We weep for the victims of war and trauma, and we cry particular tears for family, friends, ourselves. Many of those tears well up in the dark. But so does hope.

In my faith tradition, we light Advent candles during the weeks leading up to Christmas. They remind us that light—like hope—grows, never overcome by the dark. Sometimes we give meanings to the candles: the candles of hope, peace, joy, love; or the candle of the prophets, the shepherds, the Holy Family, the wise ones, etc.² None of those meanings are sacred, but they all help us watch and wait.

This year I’m lighting my candles for all of you who are grieving. As the light grows, so too will my prayers for you—for your own stubborn hope to begin and grow in the dark. Slowly, slowly, slowly. And surely.

a writing prompt

The writer Natalie Goldberg suggests the writing exercise to repeat a line like “I’m thinking that….” and then write until you run out of something to say, then repeat it: “I’m thinking that…” and continue. At the end, you can throw in “I’m not thinking that…” and see what happens.

In the spirit of Advent, try it with the phrase “I’m waiting for….” and write until you stop. Then write again “I’m waiting for…” and keep going. Repeat until you feel like adding “I’m not waiting for….” Follow your thoughts on the page, and let yourself dream about the hope being birthed in you.

Advent blessings, friends.

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This is my favorite way to mark the time during Advent (and Lent). Not my photo, but it comes from the place where I ordered my spiral here.

1. I’m guessing this is from Barbara Brown Taylor’s gorgeous book Learning to Walk in the Dark.

2. In my slightly-irreverant/dual-clergy/Christmas-is-crazytime family we have given other names for the candles that I won’t post on the internet. Comment or reply if you are slightly irreverant clergy and need to know them.

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