Dear Friends,
Merry Watters and I are delighted to share this year’s Advent calendar with you. You can download it to copy and distribute at the bottom of this page.
As with other years, this year’s poem can be sung as a hymn. Its metrical setting is 77.77. Among tunes in this meter are ORIENTIS PARTIBIS (#192 in The United Methodist Hymnal) and BINGHAM (#585 in The Hymnal 1982).
Robin Drake, a friend and composer, has written a new tune for the text as well, which you can download here:
Permission is granted to use the text and tune during Advent, as long as the copyright is acknowledged. I also ask that you let me know if you do use them.
As always, feel free to reproduce and distribute the calendar, and do let others know of its availability on this website.
Given the text of this year’s poem, I have left the four large candles unlit so that you can light them as we reach each Sunday of Advent. Also, if any of the biblical references seem unfamiliar, know that most bibles contain a list of abbreviations for the books of the Old and New Testament as part of the table of contents.
During Advent, I offer a daily email devotional based on each day’s reading. If you have not signed up previously for these devotions, you can do so by going to the Subscribe page of this website. And remember, these daily emails occasionally end up in spam or promotions folders, so if you are not seeing them starting on November 30, do check your other inbox folders.
As always, thanks to Susan Shepherd Kochinskas of Flocksholm Design for her assistance in preparing the calendar for distribution.
Both Merry and I wish you a blessed Advent as together we journey with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
Tom