“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.

“Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

“If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.”

—Mary Oliver, ”How I Go To The Woods” from her prose/poetry collection Devotions

“Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild.”

—Gospel of St. Luke 4:1 (MSG)

Earlier essays on Advent:

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Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World

Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Wednesday, December 7