Professor Luke Aleckson introduces us to Advent, a season of waiting and anticipation, and invites us to experience this season through the lens of art. Join us in journeying through the Advent Project here! 

• “It’s a very intentional, focused time to anticipate. It’s anticipating Christmas and Christ coming as a child into the world, but it’s also used as a time to talk about the second coming, the anticipation of Christ in both senses.” 
• “That sense of anticipation and waiting is something that can either be frustrating or anxiety-inducing, or it could be something that is cultivated as a spiritual attitude in and of itself.” 
• “The lighting of candles on the [Advent] wreath was a way to have something tangible to point to every day, going through physically and tracing out this time. When that time becomes intentional, then our focus can become intentional.” 
• “You can experience and appreciate it without fully understanding the entirety of a piece. That’s maybe the hardest thing for people to cope with when dealing with art and music, knowing the limits of your own understanding but being okay with that. That’s something that scares people away sometimes.” 
• “I would encourage everyone to be open. Different things will hit different people different ways.” 
• “We have a hundred different Christmas songs that we sing, and that isn’t a necessity as much as it is all these different ways to experience the same story from a different vantage point with a different tone. That’s really what we are trying to do with the Advent Project.” 
• “This year is so different than past years in that virtually all of us are going to be feeling isolated or alienated from the body of worshippers that we would normally be with. Even if we are in person, maybe it’s strained and strange. This isn’t a substitute for embodiment or the richness of lived community, but it is a different avenue for exploring different facets of human experience.” 

"Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus" recorded by Bethany Martell, TeachBeyond Associate Director of Latin America 

What's changing our lives: 

• Keane: Changing Christmas plans 
• Heather: Q Ideas Conference 
• Luke: Mourning as a discipline and moving forward in anticipation 

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