Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Advent 2022 Dispatches

Nov 28, 2022
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An Introduction to the Advent Daily Dispatches Series

Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Sunday Stories: Advent and Looking for Light
Nine years ago on the first Sunday of Advent 2013, I began a practice suggested by a friend who wanted to help me find my way out of the isolated place of grief and despair I’d found myself inhabiting a year after my beloved father’s death. “Remember,” my friend said, “to look for th…
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2 years ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Monday, November 28
“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice— though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Tuesday, November 29
Watch now (1 min) | And the wind whispers, ‘Mary.’… Will the wind ever remember The names it has blown in the past? And with this crutch, its old age and its wisdom It whispers, "No. This will be the last." And the wind cries, ‘Mary!’” —Jimi Hendrix, “The Wind Cries Mary…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Wednesday, November 30
“Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you—even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is …
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Thursday, December 1
“Whatever language you prefer, the apparent truth is that we belong to a web of creation in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is inconsequential. The hairs of your head, a baby’s sneeze, the gravitational pull of an electron at the far edge …
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Friday, December 2
Watch now (6 min) | “High winds White sky Wild birds do glide Tattered smoke fades Embers in the pipe Move like Life beginning High winds Pyramids Glittering ring Blood of the king Daughter of the stars You are Life beginning “The wind’s travellers’ tales tease the tops of the trees…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Saturday, December 3
One and one-half wandering Jews Free to wander wherever they choose Are traveling together In the Sangre de Christo The Blood of Christ Mountains of New Mexico On the last leg of a journey They started a long time ago The arc of a love affair Rainbows in t…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Sunday Stories: Walking After Midnight
Apart from the infrequency with which we wear hard shoes and lock our car doors, one of the most significant, if subtle, changes to quotidian life when we moved from an exurb of Chicago to a Southern California coastal village …
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Monday, December 5
Watch now (52 sec) | “Listen to the hummingbird Whose wings you cannot see Listen to the hummingbird Don’t listen to me. Listen to the butterfly Whose days but number three Listen to the butterfly Don’t listen to me. Listen to the mind of God Which doesn’t need to be Listen to the mind of God…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Tuesday, December 6
"And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird. The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside His cell, but the cell is narrow, so "One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands And lays in it and settles down to nest…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Wednesday, December 7
Watch now (1 min) | “Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. “I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my ways of praying, as you no doubt have yours…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Thursday, December 8
"If we can relax when our strong emotions come, then we don’t pass fear on to our children and to future generations." — Thich Nhat Hanh from Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Friday, December 9
Watch now (3 min) | "PRIOR: This angel. She's my favorite angel. I like them best when they're statuary. They commemorate death but they suggest a world without dying. They are made of the heaviest things on earth, stone and iron, they weigh tons but they're winged, they are engines and instruments of flight…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Saturday, December 10
"In the shadows of tall buildings Of fallen angels on the ceilings Oily feathers in bronze and concrete Faded colors, pieces left incomplete The line moves slowly past the electric fence Across the borders between continents In the cathedrals of New York and Rome…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Sunday Stories: Overjoyed
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Monday, December 12
Watch now (15 sec) | "Winter is here again, oh lord Haven't been home in a year or more I hope she holds on a little longer Sent a letter on a long summer day Made of silver, not of clay I've been runnin' down this dusty road Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin' I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Wednesday, December 14
Watch now (2 min) | "I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind I'm building a sill to slow down the time I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind I'm building a sill to slow down the time" —Bon Iver, from “Woods…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Thursday, December 15
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have noticed a marked uptick in un-subscribers since I began sending out these daily Advent mini-dispatches. Because I don’t want to overwhelm anyone, this will be the last one sent to your inboxes directly unless the community here…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Friday, December 16
Watch now (33 sec) | I'm blown like smoke and blind as wind Except for when your love breaks in Maybe to those who love is given sight To pierce the wall of seeming night And know it pure beyond all imagining Engine throb, street cruise light, bullet car flash Hollow beauty, night gleam, oily river, tension glass…
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2 years ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Saturday, December 17
“We broke from our moth husks alive in the night, the sky smeared with stars we no longer see. A child’s creed stitched on handkerchiefs— God does not abandon us we are all he knows. We must not abandon him, he is ourselves the ether of our deeds. The whistling hobo calls, sweeping ti…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Sunday Stories: Exhaling Joy
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Monday, December 19
Watch now (5 min) | “To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is emerging. This becomes essential when a threshold opens suddenly in front of you, one for which you had no preparation. This could be illness, suffering or loss. Because we are so engaged with the world, we usually forget how frag…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Tuesday, December 20
"A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, th…
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani


Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Wednesday, December 21
“My feet is my only carriage And so I've got to push on through But while I'm gone Everything's gonna be all right” —Bob Marley, from “No Woman, No Cry…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Thursday, December 22
"The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on." —from Carl Sandburg’s “Fog…
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2 years ago · 3 likes · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Friday, December 23
Watch now (1 min) | “The true self is our whole self before God, the self we were created to become, our self in Christ. It is the self that breathes, that stands and sits. It is the self that is. The true self, being simple like God, can be realized only in the mode of simple, contemplative awareness…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Cathleen Falsani
Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World
Sunday Stories: A Christmas Story
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2 years ago · Cathleen Falsani