Advent Lessons from Moss: Growth in the shadows
Green moss growing in the woods.
Walking through the woods, moss has attracted my attention, because it is growing and bright green when other life is dying, leaves fallen to the ground, trees bare…
“Mosses… thrive in the shadows where others cannot survive.” (Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses)
Moss doesn’t need warmth or light to grow.
It survives without sunshine.
What it does need is water, steady moisture, abundant in Autumn, providing what it needs to keeps it soft and alive.
As I prepare for Advent, this reminds me that growth doesn’t always happen in bright, open, certain places.
Sometimes it’s the dim, quiet corners of our lives, the waiting places, the unlit places, the hidden places, where something tender begins to take root.
I keep thinking about the hidden birth of Jesus and how this baby spent thirty hidden years of unrecorded, ordinary living: a childhood, a family, work, friendships… all under the weight of an oppressive empire. And when he started to speak out publicly, his message was one of fierce love and liberation, which must have been shaped by those slow, unseen years. For his life and teaching, it appears that God’s presence was the water that sustained him whether hidden, celebrated or persecuted - becoming an inner source of sustenance, like a spring no one could take from him.
Not outside authority.
Not religious certainty.
Not performance.
Not temple rituals.
Not oppression and violence.
He talked about connecting to this flow of Divine Presence and modelled how it can change our consciousness, and change the world, not through fear and hatred, but through love.
“The mutuality of moss and water. Isn’t this the way we love, the way love propels our own unfolding? We are shaped by our affinity for love, expanded by its presence and shrunken by its lack.” Robin Wall Kimmerer
Moss and waterfall in Spring when water is abundant
Advent reminds me that growth and the outworkings of everyday love are happening in hidden places, unnoticed, ordinary life…
The kindness of strangers.
The love of mothers and fathers and friends.
Welcoming those in need.
It remind me that life forms where no one is watching.
The Advent story begins quietly, introduced not by power, pomp, or outward appearances, but by tenderness, kindness, ordinariness, presence and care.
So this Advent, I am celebrating:
The life that is born in the hidden places, the ordinary and the struggle.
The water that sustains us, from the springs and rain on planet earth to that which enlivens our souls, softens our hearts brightens our minds, and enables us to be all we can be, humanKIND.
The quiet growth we may not yet see in forming in hidden in the shadows.
Join our Online Advent Retreat to reflect on what stands out for you this season:
Book to join live or receive the recording in your inbox.
