All Creation Waits — Gift Edition: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings (An illustrated Advent devotional with 25 woodcut animal portraits) (Hardcover)

Description

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A special gift edition of the bestselling book for Advent that reveals the wisdom and wonder of animals in the natural world  

In twenty-five portraits depicting how wild animals of the northern hemisphere ingeniously adapt when darkness and cold descend, we see and hear as if for the first time the ancient wisdom of Advent: The dark is not an end but the way a new beginning comes. 
 
Short, daily reflections capture in vivid detail the intricate and astonishing ways that familiar animals, from the honeybee to the porcupine, prepare for winter. Each day’s reading is paired with a charming original woodcut illustration. Anyone who feels tired of the consumer hype of “the holiday season” will be refreshed and awakened to the eternal truth the natural world reveals. 

This special gift edition: 

• Includes a new introduction, with suggestions for how the book can be used during Advent  

• Features inspirational thoughts from men and women through the ages – scientists, poets, and philosophers – who have found God through the beauty of creation 

• Includes an Afterword, bringing readers up to date on what has happened since All Creation Waits was first published 

• Invites quiet reflection during an often-chaotic holiday season 

• Prompts meaningful conversations between children and adults, church groups, book clubs, creation care classes, and much more 

Written with quiet passion and backed by extensive research, All Creation Waits has captured the minds and hearts of thousands of readers of all ages, from children to adults. Gayle Boss invites us to realize that God can be known in all creatures, and that paying attention to these creatures makes us more fully human, more fully ourselves. 

“The practice of Advent has always been about helping us to grasp the mystery of a new beginning out of what looks like death. Other-than-human creatures—sprung, like us, from the Source of Life—manifest this mystery without question or doubt. The more I’m with animals and the more I learn about them, the more I know they can be more than our companions on this planet. They can be our guides. They can be to us ‘a book about God...a word of God,’ the God who comes, even in the darkest season, to bring us a new beginning.” —from All Creation Waits 

About the Author

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Gayle Boss writes in Michigan, where she was born and raised. Her life-long love of animals and her immersion in spiritual texts and practices have melded in poems and essays that explore how relationships with animals specifically, and an attentive presence in the natural world generally, restore us to our deepest selves. The mother of two grown sons, she lives in Grand Rapids with her husband.

David G. Klein is an award-winning graphic artist with illustrations for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Random House, Tor Books, DC Comics, and Marvel. He is a graphic novelist, printmaker, engraving artist, and co-founder of Brooklyn-based Point Made Animation.

Praise For…

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"This is the book I gave to my family and friends two Christmases ago in hard copy. It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen and so deeply moving with the story each day from December 1 to December 25 about what it takes for different animals to get through the winter cold. This book is something to share with your family or even alone to touch something that is very rare, and so real and heart-rending." —Trina Paulus, author of Hope for the Flowers

“Gayle Boss writes lovingly about animals in their habitats using rich and lyrical language. Children will learn—and be awestruck—as their parents read about creatures they know, and don't know.  I'm certain families will make reading this lovely book together a yearly tradition, whether they observe Advent or not.  All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings is a beautiful addition to any family library.”—Deborah Heiligman, author of Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith, a National Book Award Finalist

“This book reminds me of what St. Paul tells us in Romans 8:19—All creation waits! In this invigorating view of Advent the contrasts are beautifully presented—between darkness and light, waiting and arrival, sleeping and waking, human and animal creatureliness. The stories and illustrations partake of the kind of reality Christ exemplified in his Advent...How helpful it is to join the animals during their Advent waiting.” —Luci Shaw, Writer in Residence, Regent College, author and poet

“To be awake in the world each winter is to sense loss, to know the weight of waiting. This book’s illustrations and descriptions of the winter habits of 24 animals are gentle lessons in biology—about how lactic acid pools in the bloodstream of a turtle or a porcupine’s gut digests wood. But the animals are also a metaphor for faith, and the final chapter explores the meaning of a God who became incarnate ‘as a child at home among animals’ for the sake of a creation that still waits.” —Christian Century

“All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings showcases twenty-five fresh images of the foundational truth that lies beneath and within the Christ story. In twenty-five portraits depicting how wild animals of the northern hemisphere ingeniously adapt when darkness and cold descend, we see and hear as if for the first time the ancient wisdom of Advent: The dark is not an end but the way a new beginning comes. Short, daily reflections that paint vivid, poetic images of familiar animals, paired with charming original wood-cuts, will engage both children and adults. Anyone who does not want to be caught, again, in the consumer hype of ‘the holiday season’ but rather to be taken up into the eternal truth the natural world reveals will benefit immensely from reading All Creation Waits. An informative and inspiring read from cover to cover, All Creation Waits is especially recommended to all members of the Christian community regardless of denominational affiliation. —Midwest Book Review

“Each of the beautiful creatures in this little book is a unique word of God, its own metaphor, all of them together drawing us to the One we all belong to. Adapting to the dark and cold they announce in twenty-four different ways the Good News of Advent: that through every dark door the creating Love of the universe waits.” —Richard Rohr, OFM

“A wonderfully refreshing sidelong book that makes you stop and think and ponder and consider and contemplate and see not only Advent but your entire blessed life with new eyes. Which seems to me to be the whole point of any generous honest art. Which All Creation Waits most certainly is.” —Brian Doyle, author of Chicago

“This book is a delight to savor and behold. I am someone who believes that the earth is our original monastery, and this worthy guide invites us intimately into the gifts of winter by exploring the rhythms of various birds, bees, and animals during the holy season of Advent. A lovely invitation into the quiet mysteries of darkness.” —Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, author of Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics