Craig Newton, new director of Shallowford House, our diocesan retreat centre, mulls the season of mistletoe and wine.
There’s a certain stillness in the air as the year begins to draw to a close. It’s a quiet that sits beneath the busyness of December, beneath the shopping lists and Christmas parties, beneath the deadlines and the expectations. It’s the solemn quiet of winter. Of early nights and frosted mornings. Of candles lit against the dark.
If we allow ourselves to listen, Advent has a different rhythm to the world around it. Where the world demands we speed up, Advent invites us to slow down. Where the world grows loud, Advent gently whispers. Where the world requires more, Advent offers rest. Advent, in its truest sense, is a season of holy waiting. A time not to strive, but to receive.
In the Gospel stories, before the multitudes of the heavenly host praised God, there was silence. Before the light of a star broke into the night sky, there was anticipation. Before God came close in the vulnerability of a child, there were ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. It was in that stillness, unnoticed by most, that Heaven touched earth.
This is the fulfilment of Advent: God interrupting the ordinary. The Incarnation is the great holy interruption; the Creator entering creation, the Eternal One stepping into time, Heaven colliding with earth. It didn’t arrive with prestige or power, but in the stillness of the night, in a place where most weren’t looking.
This is how God so often moves. Not through the sensational and spectacular, but through quiet, unassuming moments. A whispered prayer. A small act of kindness. A pause in the rush of the day.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.” Perhaps this Advent, we might learn again how to make room for those interruptions. To pause, long enough to notice where the light breaks in. To listen, for the whisper beneath the noise. To create for ourselves and for others, spaces of stillness in which the God who came at Bethlehem might meet us again
Craig Newton joined the diocese in August as director of Shallowford House, our diocesan retreat and conference centre and is looking forward to welcoming people through his first winter of retreat days, workshops and hosting church weeks/weekends and other groups stays.
The ever-evolving calendar of up-coming retreats et al can be found at https://shallowfordhouse.org/events1/
Diocesan staff met at Shallowford this week, enjoyed the hospitality of Craig and his team, heard from Sam Rushton and Nick Smeaton (Diocesan Secretary and Director of Strategy) about how the diocsean strategy will affect their work over the coming year and marvelled at new decor and improving facilities for guests.