Advent Photos - Part 2

This Advent, I've been taking part in the Rethink Church Advent Photo-A-Day Challenge. Here are the photos I've taken over the past week :

Prepare: I somehow found myself agreeing to sing at a carol service
dressed as an elf. I needed a hat. Fortunately, I have a good sized fabric stash.

Glory: God's glory is like someone I catch a glimpse of as they 

disappear round a corner, or like the setting sun between trees.
I know it's there, but I don't always manage to keep it in sight. 

Voice: in the youth small group that we (my husband, my friend and I) lead, 
we wrote letters of support to prisoners of conscience. 

Might: https://open.spotify.com/track/1OASalZ8rCFS0pdlobUyfY

Carry: each year, we have the opportunity to fill gift bags for
vulnerable people in our city.

News: yesterday, I sang backing vocals for Santa. :-)

You may have noticed that I'm a photo short here. For several days last week I wasn't able to do whole lot because of back problems, but I did listen to a lot of music, and the old carol It Came Upon A Midnight Clear seemed to sing extra loudly to me (particularly the verse about 'painful steps'). So, fitting quite nicely with the theme of 'revealed', I give you an audio snapshot from my favourite Christmas album of 2017: https://giantsandpilgrims.bandcamp.com/track/it-came-upon-a-midnight-clear

Advent Photos

I grew up in a church culture that didn't really make much of it, but Advent is one of my favourite times of the year. I've tried to find different ways of engaging with the season of Advent before on my old blog, Dust Bunnies, but this year, I thought I'd join in with an Advent Photo A Day challenge on Instagram. There are lots out there, but I've gone with the Rethink Church challenge, from the US United Methodists. I'm discovering that what I like about this is that I haven't set the theme for each day, so instead of just loitering in thematic territory with which I'm comfortable, I find myself having to do a bit of work, which means paying greater attention to, and reflecting more deeply on the coming of Jesus than I might otherwise.

Below is a gallery of this week's pictures. I haven't posted much from day to day in the way of explanation for each photo. Maybe you'd interpret the theme in a completely different way.

Open

Presence

Kindles

Known

Percieved

Awesome

Remember

Tenderly

If you feel like joining in with the photo challenge, you can find more information here. Giants & Pilgrims' beautiful new Advent-themed album, The Joyous Mysteries, is available here.