Advent and a place of stillness at home

Christmas is coming soon. Some people prepare for it consciously. A publication by Steunpunt Liturgie describes several ways to celebrate the season of Advent in your own way.

A ‘vier-hoek’, a celebration corner (a play on the Dutch for ‘quadrangle’), is a place of stillness: a little place at home to celebrate. A corner specially for moments of silence, Bible reading and prayer. A place for attention to the passing of time around Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. You not only free up time to go through this season of the year consciously, you also free up a tangible place for it.
The celebration corner can be part of the table, but also a cupboard, an empty shelf in the open bookcase, a section of the windowsill, a wooden block or chest, or something else again. It can be in the living room, but also in the attic. If you do not have much space, you can also use a nice box or small chest; with such a celebration box or chest you can set up the celebration corner for each occasion and then tidy it away again. How you do it depends on your own situation and your own possibilities. But what is the same in every situation is that there is a spot that is set aside for one thing: attention and time for celebrating life with God.

A place of stillness can be so small that it fits in your trouser pocket. And so also in your hand. The prayer nut is one of the practical ideas with a long tradition. It is an object that was given new life in our time, as Wiebe van Dingen makes them to his own design. The prayer nut opens and turns on a little hinge. With a pen you can write a name or something fitting in it that only you will read. The prayer nut helps to focus attention: whether the nut stands open before you or you have it invisibly in your hand, you are in your own celebration corner, your own place of stillness.