December 5, 2016

Devotional for Week of Advent II
Advent is Here: Get Creative
by the Rev. Bowie Snodgrass

Whether we observe it as Advent or simply Christmas preparation, Advent inspires creativity.  We decorate trees and cookies, sing carols, and write cards to share our love.  This season inspires crafts, adornment, and art. 
 
The poem I chose for this week is "Advent Calendar" by Rowan Williams, from The Poems of Rowan Williams, published the year he became Archbishop of Canterbury.  I liked William's descriptive poems best, where he uses language to paint a portrait or describe a picture, including several mediations on orthodox icons. 
 
For a seminary assignment, I wrote a poem about a Nativity icon "after Rowan Williams" (imitating his style). It's not my finest or even a finished work, but that's not the point. Advent is not about completion or perfection, but the pregnant promise of God's ongoing creation.
 
Creativity begets creativity.  God's natural world, Christ's life, and the Christian tradition inspire new art, language, and song in every generation. Below are two musical settings of Williams' "Advent Calendar."  Prayer inspires art, which inspires poetry, which inspires music, which inspires prayer.  This Advent, get creative. You don't have to be original, just inspired by an ancient story that is eternal and yet ever new. 

Advent Calendar
By Rowan Williams
He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

My Nativity, by Bowie Snodgrass
after Rowan Williams

My icon was written for prayer  
with egg tempera hues, gold foil, 
and hinged doors I close in Lent -
now open for angels to adore. 
 
My icon was written with Mary
kneeling, cloaked in crimson,
hair covered, gazing at her son
with Joseph, one foot bare.
 
My icon was written with a flock
lulled by their shepherd's flute.
Another herdsman lays a lost one,
like a child, on his shoulder, found.  
 
My icon was written with magi
of various maturities - a soft face, 
brown beard, white whiskers - 
bearing wisdom for the ages.
 
My icon was written with Christ
in a cave beneath cragged rock, 
a little babe in a silver box,
drawing the light into utter dark. 


Advent Calendar: Two Choral Settings

SATB a cappella setting by Philip Ledger


" Philip Ledger's (1937-2012) Advent Calendar was sung by the Evensong Choir of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Atlanta GA... The words come from a poem written by The Most Reverend Rowan Williams (b. 1950)... and describe the birth of Christ. We hope you enjoy and are inspired by the music, poetry and images of this carol."

SATB with organ setting by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies


BBC Singers · Conductor, Stephen Cleobury · Organist, Stephen Disley · Composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies from Choir Book for the Queen  · Poem by Dr. Rowan Williams