17th December 2025

Advent can be a wonderful time of anticipation and reflection, but it can also be hectic with a tendency towards life beginning to feel somewhat chaotic as we try and squeeze ever more into each 24 hours as Christmas approaches.

I’m listening to Miranda Hart’s book, “I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You” in which she talks about her recovery from long term illness. She notes that having an ordered life persuades our brains that all is well with the world.

It brought to mind a verse from the hymn “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”:

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

I feel a sense of calm, just calling those words to mind!

How might we find ways of letting “our ordered lives confess the beauty of God’s peace” at this time? I’m appreciating some stillness in church on a Sunday; eating breakfast looking out of the window at the birds overhead, the clouds scudding across the sky and leaves pirouetting to earth from the trees. In a not-terribly-ordered-way I turn to various online resources from time to time too (e.g. https://sacredspace.com/ ;  https://lectio365.com/ ; Iona Community – YouTube ; Advent words). A work in progress towards more quietness… How about you?

Ruth Allen