I am not inviting readers to leave their place and go to some distant land in a distant past. The invitation is rather to transpose this Provençal scene into one’s own place, to live the same story in a different context. The invitation is to learn the art of watchful waiting for Christ anywhere and anytime.
Sylvie Vanhoozer, The Art of Living in Advent
You might remember author/artist Sylvie Vanhoozer from our spring discussion about her gorgeous book The Art of Living in Season - and I’m thrilled to get to share her newly-released Advent book with you. Many thanks to InterVarsity Press for generously sending Sylvie’s book to me!
Pax+bonum, Kristin
Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.” (Luke 22:8 NIV)
Though we’re on the cusp of September, still rooted in this Season After Pentecost, a treasure of a book just started winging its way out into the world: The Art of Living in Advent: 28 Days of Joyful Waiting by Sylvie Vanhoozer. It’s a small and deep book that will help prepare us for a shift in the liturgical calendar…the coming, with Advent, of a new liturgical year, where we get to practice re-encountering the life of Jesus and his saints.
We’re called to savor and invest in our relationship with God in the current moment, but Scripture also shows us a pattern of mindful, holy preparation for the coming days and seasons.
So, I’m inviting you to both savor these September days and also begin to plant some seeds for the coming Advent season.
Advent, after all, defies seasonal borders: we are perennially living in an “Advent-ish” time, as Sylvie Vanhoozer describes it - watching, waiting, in-between the already-accomplished and the not-yet-completed. We are called to look for God right here, right now, and also keep a patiently hopeful eye on the horizon, knowing the culmination of all this mysterious work is yet to come.
At our core, we’re an Advent people, all the time. And I’m thrilled to share Sylvie’s new resource with you: one that draws out the depth of our nature to help us conform more seamlessly with the coming Advent season, while also helping us to respond to Advent as we experience it in our own varied landscapes.
A CULTURAL PARABLE
…my ancestors called their nativity scenes lou Belèn: “the Bethlehem,” in Provençal. But this “Bethelehem” looks strangely like home, not just because of its name but, even more conspicuously, because of its architecture and landscaping.
Sylvie Vanhoozer, The Art of Living in Advent
Born and raised in Provence, France, Sylvie offers one of her cultural treasures as a parable for us all: the Provençal crèche, filled with all of our typical figures of the manger scene (the Holy Family, shepherds, etc.), as well as the santons…the “little saints,” figures carrying out their typical Provençal days and vocations, from bakers to musicians, all integrated into the red-tiled, decidedly French manger setting. Herbs and greenery of southeastern France decorated the scene, draping the ancient story and setting of the birth of Christ in the natural offerings of the Provençal landscape and local industry.
This Provencal manger scene even extends beyond the household crèche. The santons are brought to life in pastoralès: Nativity plays (much like Medieval mystery plays) in which the little emblematic townsfolk characters are brought to life, telling the story of Christ’s birth in the context of these Provençal lives.
In her first book, The Art of Living in Season, Sylvie introduced us to this charming crèche tradition, using the Advent santons and their varied occupations to help us see our movement through the Church calendar with fresh eyes. And now, in her new Advent book, Sylvie is honing those santons back to their seasonal source, walking us through Advent one week at a time.
Accompanied by these charming, emblematic little manger figures, Sylvie offers daily entries for each of the four weeks of Advent. Each day’s reading includes combinations of Scripture, cultural and historical reflections, personal insight, and an invitation to respond to the day’s reading through prayer or prompts. Sylvie’s vibrant, delightful illustrations are dotted throughout the book, combining imagery of the Provençal santons with the botanicals of her current landscape: the midwest United States.
The Bible mentions many plants by name, even some common to Provence, such as climbing vines, olives, and oak trees. Do you know your place and the plants that belong to it? Can you learn more about the plants in your area, as I had to do in painting mine, whether you own a creche or not?
Sylvie Vanhoozer, The Art of Living in Advent
The baker santon links us to the land to which we belong (our terroir), and also to the story to which we now belong, the story of the Christ child who, when fully grown, was broken for us…
Sylvie Vanhoozer, The Art of Living in Advent
And, to me, this is truly the crux of Sylvie’s brilliance in writing and illustrating this Advent book: she reminds us of our great inheritance of sacramental theology, calling us deeper into our own precious landscape, wherever we may be.
Sylvie’s life journey has taken her from France, to England, to Scotland, and then the US; and, in all these varied places, she found ways to integrate Advent into her locale, helping her better know the time and place to which God had called her.
And she invites us to do the same: to graft our own lives and landscapes into Advent, just as the Provençal manger scenes layered the narrative of Christ’s birth on top of their own unique landscape and culture.
SAVE THE DATE
Sylvie will be joining us again for a live conversation later in September! We’ll dig deeper into these beautiful traditions of her heritage, her theology of place, Advent traditions, and more.
SAVE THE DATE:
Saturday, September 20 at 11 am Pacific Time
An invitation link will be sent out a few days before we gather. All paid and founding members are invited!
Sylvie Vanhoozer was born and raised in Provence, France. A certified botanic artist, she currently focuses her attention on her writing and art, partly inspired by the places in which she has lived. She is also the author of The Art of Living in Season: A Year of Reflections for Everyday Saints. She and her husband, Kevin, live in the Chicago suburbs and have two adult daughters and one son-in-law.
GIVEAWAY!
To enter to win Sylvie’s Advent book, please read through these details…
The giveaway includes an autographed copy of The Art of Living in Advent!
Giveaway is open to all Hearthstone Fables Substack subscribers
Paid subscribers’ entries count as 5 entries
Open to worldwide shipping
This giveaway is not sponsored by Substack, the author, or the publisher (InterVarsity Press); I bought an extra copy of the book directly from Sylvie to share with you lovely folks! Many thanks to IVP for gifting me my review copy.
…and then leave a comment below with one question you’d like to ask the author.
Giveaway closes on Friday, September 12 at 10 am Pacific Time.
Are there new traditions you’ve found in the states that enhance your experience of Advent?
My question is whether Sylvie has any particular suggestions for introducing Advent traditions to younger children (specifically thinking about my four-year-old grandson here).