“Mary took the long narrow strips of fresh cloth and began wrapping the Baby like a little mummy. Usually, the mother of a newborn wrapped the child to protect their weak limbs and hold in body heat. This would be important on this chilly evening. She wrapped Him as if each bandage was a part of her heart. She wrapped till He was wrapped in both cloth and her love. In that moment she did not think about how this Child was Yahweh wrapped in humanity. Right now He was just her newborn son.”  – from The Via Advent, Chapter 28, Clothed

Incarnation is a concept I cannot wrap my mind around. It is the greatest Mystery of creation revealed but incomprehensible in scope. We read about the gods visiting the planet shrouded in the form of some animal or human. But to become human and play by our rules seems terrifying (to me)? The Author willingly enters the story He wrote but not as a rich noble or beefy hero. He is quietly born, behind enemy lines, as a scrub, a nobody, a man of the dust. There is nothing remarkable from his outer appearance.  No political power agenda. No sudden pulling back of the curtain while He’s alive. (The curtain did get pulled away at the moment of His death).

Don’t get me wrong. I understand that great men have risen from obscurity throughout the history of mankind. But no one proclaimed Himself God — and rose from the dead to prove it. All I know in my life is that I suddenly  (on June 23, 1985) had the ability to relate to God in a way unbeknownst to me in my first 17 years of life. The living God, the Incarnate One, wrapped me in His divinity in the same way He wrapped Himself in humanity. The God who dwelt in skin and bones once again dwells in skin in bones in all who call Him Lord.

Take a moment to stop and think upon the Baby in the manger.

About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census (before) Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant. Luke 2: 1 – 5 (The Message)

“Just as the newlywed couple assumed their future was set on solid ground, their world was once again shaken.  — Yahweh had started this strange course of events and He would see them through.  – from The Via Advent, Chapter 26, Bethlehem

There is a scripture (Isaiah 55:8), though I have heard it a hundred times, still does not sink into my armor plated skull. “I don’t think the way you think.  The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God seems to be a fanatical ‘viaclast’ (a breaker of the way we think something will be done).  How many times have you been convinced that God was going to answer a prayer in a specific way only to find out He completely rewired the system to answer the prayer in a way you could not have imagined.  What about being absolutely positive in the direction your life was heading only to turn around years later to say ‘How in the world did I get here?’ Or the times your earthly security has been ripped out from under you only to be replaced with the security of a loving Father in heaven. God continues to be full of surprises. If we could figure Him out He just wouldn’t be God.

Give the journey of Christmas instead of just a day. Purchase a copy of The Via Advent as a guidebook to someone’s Advent journey. ShawnSmallStories .

“Once again, Mary was alone on the floor of her home. Had she been absent seconds or hours? Reaching down, she put her hand on her belly. It was hot to the touch. She knew Life was within her womb. Looking down to the extinguished fire she saw that the cakes she had been baking for her parents were nothing but ash. They had become a burnt offering before the Lord.  Smiling, she whispered. ‘I am going to be a mother.’ “  – from The Via Advent, Chapter 16, Impossible

Impossible. This may be one of those words that best define our world view. What a person believes to be possible or impossible will unmask any labels they wear. You may define yourself as a moralistic relativist (one who says it is impossible to declare any right or wrong in the universe) until someone breaks into your house and steals your possessions. Suddenly right and wrong is sharply defined. To say one believes in redemption but declares certain people are ‘impossible to reach with truth’ undermines their belief. For one to say he or she believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God but it is impossible that He was born of a Virgin? They will need to redefine their Christian label. They also need to stop celebrating a holiday that honors the Virgin birth. Merry Christmas.

Give the journey of Christmas instead of just a day. Purchase a copy of The Via Advent as a guidebook to someone’s Advent journey. ShawnSmallStories .

“For nothing will be impossible with God.” Luke 1:37

“Looking into her sable eyes that seemed ages beyond her years, Gabriel spoke a proclamation that would turn the darkness of the world on end. His words would put the Advent, the coming of Messiah, into motion. These were the words that all of heaven and earth longed for. They would spark life into a planet given over in the Terrible Rupture. The seed was about to spring up, the promise about to be fulfilled, and the kingdom of darkness would begin to fade. And it would all start with this tender Jewish peasant girl who sought God with her whole being and had dared to pray, ‘Lord, I will do anything you ask in my life. May Your will always be done through me.’ Who was this woman?”- from The Via Advent, Chapter 14, Offspring Everlasting

Music was always a significant part of my Christmas experience. Thinking back, my first real exposure to Christ probably came through Christmas songs memorized for the pre-K Christmas show- always a sweet glorious disaster for parents to watch. In honor of those memorable lovely tunes, many of the prayers in The Via Advent are based on centuries Christmas music.

In the last year, I have adopted a new favorite Christmas album, Sting’s ‘If on a Winter’s Night’ captures all I love about Christmas. Sting not only re-imagines five centuries of Christmas music but adds a couple of new songs. I encourage you to take a listen to the first track on the album, ‘Gabriel’s Message’ which is a perfect companion to The Via Advent on the theme of illumination:

Give the journey of Christmas instead of just a day. Purchase a copy of The Via Advent as a guidebook to someone’s Advent http://www.shawnsmallstories.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpjourney. ShawnSmallStories .

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” –Luke 1: 29 – 33 (ESV)

“The Great Silence, as it came to be known among the heavenly citizens, had lasted for some 400 years. The voice of God had not been uttered since the prophet Malachi. Throughout the years of silence, the Chosen people moved from quiet concern over Yahweh’s hush to agitated anxiety. Where were His prophets? Where was His voice? But as is the habit of human nature, the Jewish nation eventually settled into a religious routine to help soothe their aching fears of the silence.” – from The Via Advent, Chapter 1, The Great Silence

I don’t know about you, but as the season of Advent begins it seems easier for me to ‘hear’ God’s voice and sense His presence. There is something about the Christmas music that plays everywhere I go, the plastic lawn manger scenes that pop up in all different places, or the beloved Charlie Brown Christmas special that made me more aware of God’s story.

Its not that those things draw me closer to God (the plastic manager scenes are weird to me) but the colorful and audacious Christmas accoutrements cause me to slow down and disengage from my habitual life rhythms. The presence of these ‘icons’ help to interrupt my religious routines that I build through most of the year. Suddenly, expectation for the Christ Child is rebirthed in my overpacked life.It’s time to slow down, to ponder, to thank, to expect.

If you would like to purchase a copy of The Via Advent as a guidebook to your Advent journey visit  ShawnSmallStories . This year make Christmas a journey and not just a day.

A short prayer:

In those moments of silence, my soul longs for You-

like the desert deer longs for a life-giving oasis.

And I realize You never left.

You were cultivating my heart through my longing,

through the silence.

Though historians are not sure when the celebration of Advent was first observed throughout Christendom, most agree churches started establishing the seeds of the Advent season as early as the 4^th century. The very nature of Advent has allowed a wide variety of local geographic traditions to spring up throughout history.

The word advent comes from the Latin adventus which means ‘coming.‘ The traditional advent season starts between November 27 and December 3 to the Nativity of Jesus, better known as Christmas Day, December 25. Advent focuses the church on building expectancy for the celebration of the Incarnation of God, the first coming of Christ. This, in turn, prepares the followers of Christ for His eventual second coming.

For those who may wonder, the origin of the Nativity scene belongs to St. Francis of Assisi.  On Christmas Eve of 1223, Francis turned a stable outside of the town of Greccio into a lesson on the Incarnation. Even though the evening was surprisingly frigid, curious townsfolk paraded down to see what the unpredictable preacher had up his sleeve. In the manger lay a tiny infant wrapped in swaddling rags.  The baby was kept quite warm by the surrounding livestock. As described by John Michael Talbot in his insightful book, The Lessons of St. Francis, “There in that humble barn in a backwoods Italian town, the joy of Christmas became palpable through the (first) Nativity scene, a lifelike reenactment of the birth of Jesus that tells volumes more about the true meaning of Christmas … (Francis) wanted to dive into the event, and experience it with all his senses.”

-This excerpt is taken from the The Via Advent, written by Shawn Small.  To order your copy for this Advent/ Christmas season go to: http://www.shawnsmallstories.com/store/

Glory by Jen Slaver

After a fifteen year absence I was back in the holy city of Jerusalem with a specific objective in mind. Just the day before, I joined hundreds of Christian pilgrims from around the world in a slow amble through the labyrinth of the Old City on a route set by Franciscan monks hundreds of years ago. The Via Dolorosa, as it is commonly known, was a path I dreamed of walking for several years. My pack contained a manuscript of my soon-to-be released book, The Via Crucis.

I carried the manuscript to the church of the Holy Sepulcher in search of a blessing. An elderly Greek priest laid hands, seasoned by years of supplication, on the book while we stood in front of Christendom’s most sacred spot: the Empty Tomb. It was a poetic finish to a writing journey that I had been on for years.

That evening, over a mouthwatering meal of hummus and strong Arabic tea, my traveling buddy Keith and I decided on an appropriate walk for the following day. Departing from the archaic Jaffa Gate that crisp November morning was quite a treat. Only a few miles south of Jerusalem sat another town known around the world—Bethlehem, the City of Bread, was that day’s destination. We spent quite a few pleasant hours leaving the hustle and bustle of the Jerusalem suburbs into the unfilled spaces on the hills above the great valley that separates the two towns.

Passing through the secured border checkpoints into Palestinian territory meant entering a different world. We continued up the hillsides that lead into the heart of the busy town of Bethlehem, always with the great valley to our left. In those valleys two millennia ago, an angelic army burst through time and space announcing the Incarnation of the Great Shepherd to a company of terrified goat and sheep herders.

At the church of the Nativity, which sits at the top of Bethlehem, I joined a multitude of Spanish pilgrims, in praise and adulation at the Holy Grotto, the celebrated birthplace of Jesus. As they worshipped, in their native tongue, the One who came as a gift for all mankind, I quietly wept. That walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, undoubtedly taken a few times by the holy family when they found themselves citizens of Bethlehem for a short period of their lives, became the seedbed of The Via Advent.

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

This week I received a beautiful letter from a 15-year girl who read The Via Crucis. A simple letter like this encourages me to continue writing with all that is within me.

15^th Annual Post-IPPY Report. The Via Advent wins Silver in the Inspirational/ Spiritual Category

NEW YORK, NY (May 23, 2011) – A gala celebration was held Monday night at the Providence Club in mid-town Manhattan kicking off the BookExpo America convention. Conducted each year to honor the year’s best independently published books, the “IPPY” awards are known for recognizing excellence in a broad range of subjects and for rewarding titles that excel in innovative book design and creative writing.

Independent book publishing is extremely diverse. This year’s awards attracted 3,907 entries, and the medalists represent books published in forty-five U.S. states, seven Canadian provinces, and seven overseas countries. Launched in 1996 as the first unaffiliated awards program open exclusively to independent, university, and self-published titles, the IPPY Awards contest celebrates its 15^th anniversary this year. Winners in 69 national categories received gold, silver and bronze medallions and foil seals for their book covers. The IPPY’s remain the largest published book awards in the world.

Competing against over 200 books in the Inspirational/Spiritual genre, the largest category in the IPPY’s, The Via Advent took home the Silver medal. Author Shawn Small and illustrator Jenny Slaver took a bronze in the same category in 2009 for their first book The Via Crucis.  Shawn and Cheryl Small, and Jenny Slaver attended the Monday night celebration.

“Congratulations on your IPPY Award and on the much-deserved recognition for your great work!” said award director Jim Barnes. “To these publishers and authors, telling the truth and fighting for a cause comes before making a profit. These are the books that win our awards and these are the books that can help solve the world’s problems.”

See complete results for the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards at

http://www.IndependentPublisher.com/article.php?page=1442

Contact Information: shawn@wondervoyage.com or ShawnSmallStories.com

Here is a short video I shot the day I found outt a couple of weeks ago that The Via Advent won the Independents Publisher’s Silver for the Inspirational/ Spiritual.I happened to be speaking at a retreat near the ocean in North Carolina

I will be leaving with my family tomorrow for NYC to attend the awards and visit the greatest city in the world. Thanks again for all the well-wishes for this big win.

New books are always mulling through my mind and my next book is only a few months away. A very different tale indeed as I follow the life-story of a couple who started my favorite youth outreach in the whole world.