Guide 2: Stilling Our Bodies
First Light: Advent 2025
Review the practice so far (10 min)
In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Solitude—intentionally quieting our lives to be with the One who loves us. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercise for the week ahead: to intentionally put into practice something that helps make your life 10% quieter and slower this Advent season. So let’s talk about how that’s going!
What step did you take to slow and quiet your life this last week? And how did it go?
Guide overview (2 min)
Hospitality is the practice of making space in our lives for other people to experience the healing of God in theirs. The idea of hospitality around the holidays, though, likely causes two different reactions in a room like this—some of us feel inspired, and others of us feel paralyzed. In the frenzied pace of “Christmas noise,” we can jump into hospitality with an unsustainable vigor or a weighty moral duty. Instead, we will continue our practice of Solitude tonight, remembering that it is from stillness that, like Jesus, we “only do what we see the Father doing” (John 5v19). Stillness grants us the vantage point of seeing where in our lives God is already working so that we can join him—not the other way around. From stillness, all of our action takes on creative potential in God’s mission to remake the world and all who live in it in his image.
Without time and space to be quiet and still, all of the seasonal tradition—friends and parties, gifts and carols—will devolve into Christmas noise and busyness. We choose, instead, to slow and quiet our bodies down as a way of cultivating an openness to God. And so, tonight, we join the global church in continuing this Advent season with the practice of Solitude through the exercise of stilling our bodies.
Exercise for tonight (30 min)
We aim to be a community of peace and quiet in a culture of anxiety and noise through the practice of Solitude. The Christmas season is a prime opportunity to see this anxiety and noise on display—in the world around us and the world in us. So, it is also a prime opportunity to, like Jesus, pull away from the world to sit before the Father in stillness. Very regularly in the gospels, we find Jesus going into the wilderness to be alone with God. And if Jesus needed solitude, how much more do we?
Because it’s hard to practice Solitude with a group of people, in our pursuit of becoming a community of peace and quiet, our exercise for tonight will focus on how we can begin to practice stilling our bodies in pursuit of peace. To do this, we will practice stillness together for 3–5 minutes, and then we’ll get into smaller groups to reflect on that experience and plan for how to best integrate it into our lives this season.
As we start, find a comfortable place and posture. As you do, let’s remember that it’s unlikely that any of us will be able to experience the fullness of this experience in just a few minutes in a room full of people. And, besides that, we are so often in motion that stillness is likely to cause a slight increase in nervous energy in our bodies rather than a feeling of connectedness to God. This is ok! Instead of perfection, let our goal be to practice sitting as still as possible in this nervous energy––believing that God is here with us in it—shifting our attention away from our anxiety and towards God's presence. Feel free to use a breath prayer like we practiced last week. Perhaps, “Jesus, I receive your peace.”
Ok, I am going to set a timer and we’ll all practice stilling our bodies in God’s presence.
(Leader note: Set a timer for 3–5 minutes. If it’s helpful, consider playing soft instrumental or ambient music to help people focus.)
Next, let’s break into smaller groups to discuss two things:
That exercise: What was that exercise like for you? What did you notice when you stilled your body for that long? Did you find it easy or difficult?
Our Advent season: This Advent season, we are reorienting ourselves towards quiet and stillness—not instead of the joyful Christmas traditions or hospitality, but so that we can more fully enjoy them. So, let’s have a conversation about how we can grow this stillness in our lives. Remember, though, the only way to cultivate a sustainable practice of anything is to start small. So we’re not asking about how we overhaul the entirety of our lives, but simply: What can I do this Advent season to make my life 10% slower and quieter?
(Leader note: Allow people to talk for 15–20 minutes before moving onto the next section.)
Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)
Tonight we tried out a way to practice stilling our minds and continued exploring the ways in which we could slow and quiet our lives this Advent season. So, until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead is to:
Add stillness to your Solitude practice. Take some time to intentionally put into practice the stillness we tried tonight. It may not connect directly to your Silence practice from last week if you chose something that involves movement (like on your drive home from work). However you choose, practice it intentionally this week with the continued goal of continuing to make your life 10% slower and quieter this Advent season.
