The former book was one I have meant to buy and read for a couple of years - indeed it was the prompt for my own vlog of Advent poems during lockdown last year. I don't have time for that this year, but I do have time at least to read the book.
I read the latter book as an advent devotional last year (you can read my review here, but started it late and hurried through it, but it deserves a more leisurely consumption. I got to know Jan's work through our mutual links with St. Luke's UMC in Orlando Florida and got to meet her for dinner a few years ago through our friends, artists Chuck and Peg Hoffman (when I behaved like a star-struck fanboy).
This week, as some of you know Sally and I got the keys for what we hope will (eventually) be our retirement home... and this poem of Jan's resonated for me as I crossed the threshold on Thursday. Whether stepping across the threshold of a new home, entering into advent or at any other point (because as one friend on facebook commented on the news of our new home "Every moment is a fresh beginning") I believe this piece has something to say:
First let us say
a blessing
upon all who have
entered here before
us.
You can see the sign
of their passage
by the worn place
where their hand rested
on the doorframe
as they walked through,
the smooth sill
of the threshold
where they crossed.
Press your ear
to the door
for a moment before
you enter
and you will hear
their voices murmuring
words you cannot
quite make out
but know
are full of welcome.
On the other side
these ones who wait—
for you,
if you do not
know by now—
understand what
a blessing can do
how it appears
like nothing you expected
how it arrives as
visitor,
outrageous invitation,
child;
how it takes the form
of angel
or dream;
how it comes
in words like
How can this be?
and
lifted up the lowly;
how it sounds like
in the wilderness
prepare the way.
Those who wait
for you know
how the mark of
a true blessing
is that it will take you
where you did not
think to go.
Once through this door
there will be more:
more doors
more blessings
more who watch and
wait for you
but here
at this door of
beginning
the blessing cannot
be said without you.
So lay your palm
against the frame
that those before you
touched
place your feet
where others paused
in this entryway.
Say the thing that
you most need
and the door will
open wide.
And by this word
the door is blessed
and by this word
the blessing is begun
from which
door by door
all the rest
will come.
Jan Richardson
“Through the Advent Door: Entering a Contemplative Christmas”
available to download at
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