Gayle Boss writes from West Michigan, where she was born and raised. Her lifelong 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. Also the author of Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing, Gayle lives with her husband and Welsh corgi rescue.
"Writing about animals and the human-animal bond is the writing that enthralls me. I've found it true, what the thirteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart said: 'God is equally near in all creatures.' Many human creatures and two corgis have loved me and encouraged my work. Beyond them, the creatures and landscapes of Michigan's west coast, often wounded, open to me wonder after wonder." -- Gayle Boss
David G. Klein is an award-winning graphic artist, novelist, printmaker, engraving artist, and co-founder of Brooklyn-based Point Made Animation. He is a third generation graphic artist who started his career in his father's ad agency, doing design and print production. Klein's grandfather taught typography at the New York High School of Art & Design. Klein attended Pratt, where his father previously taught. His illustrations have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Random House, Tor Books, DC Comics, and Marvel.
"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 "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 "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 "With daily Advent
meditations shaped by an exploration of how creatures survive and
flourish even amidst the dark and cold, this is a beautiful book. I
love the woodcuts that accompany each chapter, and my children love
the facts about the animals explored each day. Poignant, wise,
fascinating." -- Sarah Clarkson, From the Vicarage
"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
"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
"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
"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
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