Giveaway and Gathering: The Art of Living in Season
A book for you - and an invitation to gather with the author!
EDITED:
A winner has been chosen at random for Sylvie’s book! Thank you to everyone for your wonderful questions and for being present here.
Check back on May 23 for our live video discussion with the author, open to all paid subscribers!
“We thus embark on a pilgrimage, following the rhythm of a calendar that is punctuated not by the usual cultural holidays, but by holy days that celebrate the gradual unfolding of the extended Christmas story, starting with Advent and moving on from one season of Jesus’ life to the next, all the way to Pentecost. We will lean into Jesus’ story in order better to follow him faithfully and fittingly, in ways that are in accordance with the Scriptures and appropriate to our cultural situations.”
Sylvie Vanhoozer
Welcome! Whether you’re a longtime friend or a new kindred spirit here (I recommend visiting the Village Green to get your bearings), I’m delighted to be a companion to you through the liturgical year.
For more to supplement the rest of your May (including some lovely printables!) sift through this month’s Almanac.
Pax+bonum, Kristin.
I’m continually inspired by the braiding-together of liturgical seasons with natural seasons. It’s a way of marking time that encourages us to see the life and work of Christ & his Saints holistically echoed throughout all of our days, and it offers us a beautifully incarnational vision of our location in both time and in place.
Imagine my delight, then, when I came upon Sylvie Vanhoozer’s The Art of Living in Season last year! Reading her words & enjoying her illustrations, it was truly as if I’d found a long-lost friend. Her book is an invitation to encounter Christ in the Church year in our own varied places.
From the back cover:
Growing up in her native Provence in southern France, Sylvie Vanhoozer learned about the traditional Provençal crèche. These nativity scenes were peopled by santons - “little saints” - each bringing their unique gifts to the baby Jesus. As her own life took her around the world to England, Scotland, and the United States, she kept up the tradition of her native crèche in her own home, adding to it souvenirs from each new place where she found herself.
In The Art of Living in Season, Vanhoozer invites readers to join this communion of little saints and to follow them not only at Christmas but also through the whole year. Each chapter introduces a new santon and opens up another aspect of our annual pilgrimage toward Christ. Structured as weekly reflections and illustrated with Vanhoozer’s own botanical illustrations, this book invites us to follow Christ in our own places and seasons of life, beginning by keeping in step with the rhythms of nature and the church calendar.
The Art of Living in Season is a companion for everyday saints who wonder how they can follow Jesus - and what they can give him - wherever, whenever, and whoever they are.
In reading Sylvie’s reflections, it almost feels as if we’re sitting across the table from one another having a conversation over a glass of lemonade…such is her talent for giving words and images to the stirrings of the soul. She provides so much inspiration and encouragement to look at our own homeplace with fresh eyes, seeing how the life of Jesus in the liturgical year folds into the seasons of our locale. She reminds us that our place tells this holy story, too.
(If you’ve followed my ramblings for a bit, you know how crucial that approach is to me - and you can imagine how giddy I was to stumble upon Sylvie’s writing!)
So, I’m delighted to offer an autographed copy of The Art of Living in Season as a giveaway…
…and also to host Sylvie for a live video gathering.
GATHERING
I’m thrilled to have Sylvie joining us for a live video discussion this month! All paid members are welcome to join - we’ll be chatting about The Art of Living in Season, Sylvie’s upcoming book (!), theology of place, liturgical living in different parts of the world, and more. Bring your questions!
SAVE THE DATE:
Friday, May 23 at 2 pm Pacific Time
An invitation link will be sent out a few days before we gather.
“A retired French teacher, homeschooler, and certified botanic artist, I seek to live as a place-maker, using my gifts to cultivate whatever and whoever happens to be growing in and around my locale – home, classroom, church, neighborhood, even literal garden – as a way to welcome Christ in my place, which I call ‘being advent-ish.’ I presently focus my attention on my writing and botanical art, partly inspired by the places in which I have lived, starting with Provence, France, where I grew up, before transplanting in England, Scotland, and finally in the American Midwest.”
Via Sylvie’s web site
GIVEAWAY DETAILS
To enter to win Sylvie’s beautiful book, please read this bit of nitty-gritty…
The giveaway includes an autographed copy of The Art of Living in Season, as well as a signed bookmark!
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!
…and then leave a comment below with one question you’d like to ask the author.
Giveaway closes on Friday, May 9 at 10 am Pacific Time, and a winner will be chosen at random.
This book is a treasure, and I’m so excited to share it with you - and to learn from the author alongside you!
Pax et bonum,
Kristin
I would love to know if she wrote the book in-sync or out of sync with the seasons as the year passed? How did that influence her writing?
Hello! As someone who lives in a small apartment in the Nation's Capital, I can attest that this city does not live on any natural or liturgical cycle, but only a (man-made) political one. Living a liturgical cycle is an intentional choice to live more authentically and eternally, not thinkiing of short-term gains or power plays. Any advice for city dwellers? PS I inherited my mom's presepio (we're italian!) and I love nothing more than recreating the nativity scene from my childhood, building the village, the landscape, the stable, and placing all the little people in their special spots.