Pocket Prayers for Easter

Advent and Christmas Wisdom from GK Chesterton is like an invitation to laugh and think from a friend and mentor. To quote the author: 'People are losing the power to enjoy Christmas through identifying it with enjoyment. When once they lose sight of the old suggestion that it is all about something, they naturally fall into blank pauses of wondering what it is all about. To be told to rejoice on Christmas Day is reasonable and intelligible, if you understand the name, or even look at the word. To be told to rejoice on the twenty-fifth of December is like being told to rejoice at quarter-past eleven on Thursday week. You cannot suddenly be frivolous unless you believe there is a serious reason for being frivolous.'

GK Chesterton The New War on Christmas December 26 1925

Advent is celebrated when the year is becoming darker and colder, moving into the death and dormancy of winter. Before we can greet the coming of the light, we need to engage with some themes that are challenging and occasionally fearful. Like the Magi who travelled a long distance to search out and adore the infant Jesus, and who took some wrong turns on the way, we too have a journey to undertake before we find that we have 'Walked haphazard by starlight straight into the kingdom of heaven.' (U.A. Fanthorpe, BC:AD) Haphazard by Starlight is a companion volume to Janet Morley's bestselling Lent book, The Heart's Time. Here the reader is given the opportunity to engage in a pilgrimage of the heart, through Advent and Christmas to the feast of Epiphany. Each day, from 1 December to 6 January, offers a poem (sometimes explicitly Christian, sometimes not) and an accessible commentary that is both critically informed and devotional in intent.