🕯️ A Blessing between Hope & Peace !

Published: Mon, 12/01/25

Updated: Mon, 12/01/25

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Green garland framing text, four candles

Hello, !

This season we are thinking of you! Especially if you are planning and leading worship, study, events, music, and prayer this Advent season. It is challenging and beautiful work. We want to support you in it! So we have gathered a few resources and will share them throughout these four weeks leading toward Christmas. (Keep reading below!)

And I especially wanted you to know that I'm praying for you as you move each week between themes of Advent. The between spaces are where accompaniment can be so valuable. So each week of Advent I am sending you a new blessing for the moment - Monday mornings - when you are between the big themes of the season. This week you have led your people to explore the mysteries of hope. And with the blink of an eye you must turn to an examination of peace. I wrote a blessing to accompany you through the transition and help you move with care through your holy work.

Advent 1: Blessing Between Hope and Peace

Keep reading below (and at the link) for more Advent resources to support you as you lead through the season.

Mini Writing Retreat for Women of Color
Friday, December 5th

Maybe you know a woman of color who is writing and would like some additional support? Please pass this message on to her! We are hosting the next Mini Writing Retreat for Women of Color on Friday, December 5. Learn more about it. And register today!

Writing Retreat for Women of Color | Dec 5

Inspiration for Writing

One of my inspirations for hosting retreats specifically for women of color came from my coaching and friendship with with Dr. Charisse Gillett. Last week in our final interview of the series, we talked about the importance of Black women's stories. Dr. Gillett, president of Lexington Theological Seminary, read from her new memoir, That Little Girl.

Then she and I talked about the critical importance of making space for Black women's writing. Together we hosted a half-day writing retreat for women of color in July. More than a dozen women gathered, wrote, and talked about the process of writing. They worked on projects of their own design, and they supported each other to speak their truths. We're doing this again on December 5.

3MMM | Episode 265: Black Women's Stories

Our beloved mini writing retreats for all writers are back for January 5 and February 6. Explore them now and save your place to write with us in 2026.

Members of the Writing Table receive a 50% discount

Advent is here!

Advent has arrived. This season of waiting and anticipation is here. The church calendar begins again, and we reflect on themes of hope, peace, joy, and love. In reality, we rarely have much time to reflect. This is also a season of busyness, of calendars that often feel hectic, gatherings, griefs, and weariness. Alongside hope, we feel despair. As we long for peace, we wrestle with fear. Our joy feels tempered by gloom. Love is hard to hold onto when hate seems to swirl around us.

We find ourselves in this season where our plans and expectations will surely be met by both unexpected joys and burdens. How can our practices of prayer and reflection help us journey through the season in ways that feel hopeful? What do we need to find peace within? How might we notice and practice acts of love?

Advent resources and reflections:

Here is a visio divina practice with a Gaelic blessing and beautiful art.
Read this reflection on all that Advent requires and how we might find peace within.
These are a few simple guiding principles for Advent from 2020 that still hold true today.
Ten years ago I shared about engaging in the prayer practice of an Advent word a day.
This poem calls us to awaken to the Advent journey, and this reflection inspires us to be present to this moment.
We also love "Following the Star" an Advent devotional sponsored by our friends at Passport and d365. Follow the star to pause, listen, think, pray, and go each day of the Advent season and all year long.

I'm grateful for you, , and may hope, peace, joy, and love be heading your way in the season of Advent. Watch this email for weekly prayers for you in the coming weeks.

Blessings and peace,

Eileen

New State of Clergy Report

As you are opening this email, I'm just home from AAR where I had some really great conversations with people interested and eager to see the new State of Clergy report. I also attended the Louisville Institute reception. They have funded my work on the report, and I am so grateful!

Here is a question from the 2018 SoC Report. Maybe it will give you something to consider this week:

If women are called to pastoral roles in your denomination, what can you report about how you have assisted churches in making the call to a woman for the first time?

I've already been having so many interesting conversations on Threads and Facebook about what questions people want answered in the revised and expanded report. What do you hope will be included?