Advent Songbook: Step off the train

For this year’s Art’s Open Door Advent Devotional, “Advent Songbook,” I’ll share rich examples of Christmas art and pair each piece with a devotional reflection and a practical spiritual posture to shape this season of waiting and wonder.

What to do: take time to listen and/or view the music discussed for each post. When you’re ready, read through the devotional. At the end of the written portion, there will be an invitation: something for you to try or consider in response. Listen again to the music before ending your reflection time.

Does it sound different? How is God speaking to you today through art?

Jot down anything you heard in your journal….or tell us all in the comments!

Morten Lauridsen’s “O Magnum Mysterium”

O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
iacentem in praesepio!

Beata Virgo, cujus viscera
meruerunt portare
Dominum Iesum Christum.
Alleluia!

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord,
lying in a manger!

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!

“What if I step off this train and another one never comes?”

Sarah1 and I have been meeting for creative coaching for almost six months. We have spent that time cultivating a brilliant, vibrant vision of her life as a full-time creator—a painter, entrepreneur, and arts educator. The dream is becoming clearer with each session; in fact, she has been putting very real things in place to quit the soul-crushing day job that zaps her energy and steals her joy. And yet, week after week, she has hesitated to resign.

I see this with many of my beloved coaching clients. Dreaming of the future is one thing; making it a reality is another. Sarah, like so many artists I know, is paralyzed not by lack of skill, but by The Great Mystery that lies beyond her stable paycheck: What if all of this fails? What will I do then?

When I asked her to find a metaphor or an image that represented what quitting her job felt like, she imagined herself on a train. She felt the brakes; she could see a station ahead. Would she exit this timely, safe, consistent mode of transportation that was headed to a perfectly lovely life? The problem was this: the life this train was heading toward was not for her. She knew that. The train was slowing down now. Why not just step off? She imagined herself waiting on the platform alone—What if I’m too late? What if I don’t get anymore trains?

This fear of the unknowable future is perhaps the most profound mystery we face as adults. We are trained to quantify, to predict, to minimize risk. Yet the creative life—every life—invites (requires?) us to embrace the mystery.

Beauty of Belief

I’ve stood on my fair share of train platforms. In my book, I shared about one of my biggest leaps of faith—when I left a full-time teaching job to live in the same city as my husband. Looking back on my own instances of taking leaps of faith, I’m struck by how strong I look in those moments, when all I can remember is the fear, the anxiety, even the despair, that I felt stepping into the unknown.

Writing this, I realize that one thing I love most about creative coaching is that I get to be there on the imaginary platform with the artist who takes the step. We do not spend time predicting future earnings or guaranteeing success. Although we do make concrete plans for what happens next, we focus most on the act of stepping.

We acknowledge that we don’t have the full map.

We don’t know exactly how the client roster will grow, whether galleries will call, or where the next unexpected opportunity will come from.

We name how scary that is.

We connect with what matters most—that we know we can’t stay in the life we are currently in forever, that this train is heading somewhere we don’t want to go, that we love ourselves enough to do the hard thing.

There is beauty in the belief itself, in hearing another person begin to live in congruence with who they know they were born to be.

It’s an honor and a privilege to watch artists take these steps into their own great mystery, trusting that it will lead them to a more resonant and joyful life.

In today’s Advent Songbook, Morten Lauridsen’s setting of “O Magnum Mysterium” (O Great Mystery) speaks of such faith in the face of mystery. Not unlike the style of Mealor’s “Spotless Rose,” the music spends most of its time suspended in a beautiful, dense, and slightly ambiguous harmonic world. The low, long notes and shimmering cluster chords don’t explain the mystery of Jesus’ coming; they hold it, allowing the listener to feel the profound wonder of the inexplicable.

This is exactly where Sarah is, where we all stand at times: suspended in the beautiful, yet terrifying, unknown.

Alleluia Anyway

If you listen closely and watch the score of the Lauridsen on the video above, you’ll see it— a moment of revelation. Around 4:15, you’ll hear it: after contemplating the silent awe of the mystery (”that animals should see the newborn Lord...”), he introduces the “Alleluia.”

And here’s what I love most about this piece: when the “Alleluia” slips into the texture, it does not make the music tonally clear or rhythmically straightforward. We don’t find clarity; in fact, it adds to the beautiful chaos. The “Alleluia” is woven on top of the harmonic richness, while the other text continues to be sung at the same time! This declaration of joy and faith doesn’t erase or clarify the unknown; it affirms it.

It is not just the miracle that this “Alleluia” is praising, it’s the mystery.

In Ann Lamott’s book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy,2 she says, “I still believe in the grace of the not-knowing, and in the beautiful risk of the attempt.” She agrees with Lauridsen then, that mercy and grace often reveal themselves during the act of stepping into the mystery, not before or after. The “Hallelujah” (Or Alleluia, depending on your spelling) is not the reward for a job well done; it’s the internal recognition of wonder that happens when we show up, imperfectly, for life, when we take a step, even when—especially when—we can’t see the future.

This Advent, I don’t know about you, but I want to get better at praising God for the miracles and for the mysteries.

This one is for Sarah

At the time of my writing this, Sarah still hasn’t given her notice. I know others in my life who feel a junction coming, too, who are afraid to step off their own trains. We all look for proof that the future is secure, that all will be well. And I want to invite Sarah (and you and me) this Advent to believe that, in Christmas, in Christ, all is being made well.

We can sing the “Alleluia” right in the middle of the mystery.

The Magnum Mysterium of Christmas—that God would choose to bring salvation (from the Latin word for “healing”) this way: through a child born not in a hospital but in a stable, at a birth not known about by dignitaries or attended by official royal midwives but—get this— by animals. It’s almost comical in its joy.

What if God has joy for you in the unknown, too?

Here’s another mystery—one that I have seen in my own life over and over, and in the lives of brave clients and friends who take the step off the train, who follow their unique calling: God’s grace and mercy meet us on the platforms and in the resignation emails, in the detours and the unwritten chapters. There is no step we take alone. Our “Alleluia” isn’t about finding the perfect business plan or securing the future (which is impossible, by the way); it's about choosing praise and affirmation despite the dense, unknowable texture of the path ahead.

For Sarah, and for all of us standing at a junction, the future remains shrouded in the beautiful, dense mystery we find in the heart of Advent. It is the courageous belief that grace meets us not in guaranteed clarity, but in the vulnerability of unknowing, just as God’s salvation entered the world not with the roar of a conqueror, but in the silent awe of a stable.

This Advent, let us embrace the mystery of who we are being called to be.

Let us believe it is not too late, that there will be other trains.

That joy waits for us right here and in the future.

Let Alleluia be the song we sing from the platform, before the clarity comes: a declaration of faith and joy woven through the rich, yet ambiguous harmony of this life, trusting that grace meets us, even in the great unknowing.

Try it

To practice an invitation into the Great Mystery, let us open our hands. Throughout your days of decision or doubt, when the impulse to quantify, predict, or panic about the future arises, try this simple, physical act of surrender: consciously open your hands.

Let them rest, palms up, even for a moment as you listen to the music again.

This is a quiet, powerful declaration that you do not hold the map, and that the future is not yours to secure.

Just for a moment, rest in the unfolding of the present, choosing to be a participant in the mystery rather than its frantic manager.

This Advent, may the waiting itself be the sacred ground where grace can meet you.

Share any thoughts in the comments, I’d love to hear them.

If you are someone looking for a companion on the empty platforms of the creative life, or considering a career or life shift, I have some coaching openings in the new year, as well as a few spots left in our Creative Leap Mastermind, which starts in January 2026. Learn more from the links below or email me hello@artistsforjoy.org with questions.

The Advent Songbook will come out in twice-weekly installments to bookend your week. You can subscribe to the Monday Substack emails via the button below and find Friday’s posts on Artists for Joy podcast, via Apple, Spotify, or our website.

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