“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 the Good News of Advent: that through every dark door the creating Love of the universe waits.”

Richard Rohr, OFM, founder, Center for Action and Contemplation

“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

"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

“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 nine books on the spiritual life, including Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics

All Creation Waits

The Backstory

When our first son was a toddler I wanted to add an Advent calendar to our family’s Advent practices. But there were none to be found. There were calendars with pictures of gift packages, candy canes, and reindeer behind the cut-out doors. And there were calendars with a thumbnail-size cast of the Nativity. Christmas calendars, all of them, not Advent calendars.

Researching its liturgical history, I’d learned that Advent is far richer than a tease-taste of Christmas. It’s a time for soul work, a time to face the losses that a season of darkness and cold brings, a time to feel our ache for the coming of light and warmth, new life and hope.

Wanting my son to grow up with this deeper, richer experience of Advent, I had no choice but to make my own Advent calendar. What pictures would I draw behind the little doors? What images would deliver to our hearts the wisdom that the dark, cold season is real, but not an end?

Just as I was asking that question, my son’s godmother—who didn’t know about my project—sent me her reflection on Painted Turtle as a symbol for how a healthy soul might respond in a dark time. Ah-ha! My son loved pictures of animals! Behind door number 1, I drew a turtle, buried in the mud. Quickly animals queued up to be included. Behind door number 2, a diamond-skinned snake. Then a bear, a doe, a loon…

Almost twenty years later, I wrote All Creation Waits. Like the Advent calendar, it hopes to convey the wisdom that animals of the northern hemisphere know in their bones, the truth at the heart of the Christ story: The dark is not an end, but a door. It’s the way a new beginning comes.