Wounded I Sing: From Advent to Christmas with George Herbert, by Richard Harries 

Devotional reading helps us avoid the too-soon collapsing of Advent into mere preparations for Christmas - and here Harries demonstrates how George Herbert is our most significant observer of the spiritual life through poetry

Wounded I Sing: From Advent to Christmas with George Herbert
By Richard Harries
SPCK
ISBN: 978-0281089420
 
also...

Embracing Humanity. A journey towards becoming flesh
By Isabelle Hamley
BRF

ISBN: 9781800392267

Reviewed by Paul Goodliff

 
I warmly recommend the habit of reading something devotional throughout Advent and into Epiphany (December to the end of January). Sometimes a book will touch you so deeply that you'll return to it time and again during the seasons of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany (Janet Morley's Haphazard by Starlight. A poem a day from Advent to Epiphany, SPCK, 2013, does that for me, but I am taking a break this year.)

Instead of a different poem and poet every day, which is Janet Morley's pattern, I will be reading a different poem each day, but by the same poet — the incomparable George Herbert — with comments by Richard Harries. For those who know him as a writer on Christian art, or commentator on societal and political events, or even as a regular on the Today's programme's Thought for the Day, might not expect a devotional book from this writer (who was Bishop of Oxford from 1987–2006, and now sits in the House of Lords as Lord Harries of Pentregarth), but he has already forayed into this genre of seasonal readings with a book of poems for Lent (Hearing God in Poetry, 2021).
 
This latest book will not disappoint. Not only does Harries help us understand some of the more obscure references (Herbert was, after all, a 17th century Metaphysical Poet — and Mark Oakley's My Sweet Sour Days. George Herbert and the Journey of the Soul, SPCK, 2019, would make a fine accompaniment, also), but with a perceptive eye on the spiritual life and the journey of faith, Harries demonstrates how George Herbert is our most significant observer of the spiritual life through poetry. Taking 24 of Herbert's poems (six for each of the four weeks of Advent), the heart's wrestling with God, both Herbert's and ours, unfolds in a way that speaks today of the changeless dynamics of faith in Christ. I shall be enriched as I read this each week day from 2 December until the 25th.
 
I shall also be reading Isabelle Hamley's BRF Advent Book, Embracing Humanity. Full disclosure — I am Vice-Chair of Council for BRF Ministries, and I worked on a post-Covid theology project with Hamley when I was General Secretary of Churches Together in England, and found her to be a hugely preceptive theologian. She is now Principal of Ridley hall in Cambridge, the more evangelical of the two Cambridge Anglican seminaries.

Her book has a biblical reading each day, comments and a closing prayer. I cannot tell you what it is like, as I am reserving the joy of reading it fresh for Advent itself, but knowing Isabelle Hamley, I am certain to be enriched. I hope I have time to read this alongside the lectionary readings each day!
 
Such reading helps us avoid the too-soon collapsing of Advent into mere preparations for Christmas, and certainly the materialism of the secular 'holidays'. There should be time still to purchase copies and turn waiting for Christmas into waiting upon Christ.

 

The Revd Dr Paul Goodliff is Tutor in Pastoral Supervision and Visiting Lecturer in Christian Doctrine, Spurgeon's College