#245 | The Art of Living in Season with Sylvie Vanhoozer

Watering time, everybody.

It's time for Apollos Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming, and I am your host. And today on our show, we're having another one of our deep conversations. Welcome back.

And we are back. And I have a bunch of updates that I want to bring your way. But today's not that day.

That's going to have to be in an episode in the very near future. Today I want us to pause because we're entering into the Advent season.

You know, the more time we spend online, the more we lose our grounding, disconnected from our bodies, each other, and the world around us. In a time when isolation and loneliness are at record levels, the answer to our dilemma might lie in reconnecting with simpler, enduring practices.

That's where today's guest, Sylvie Van Hooser, comes in. Sylvie is a botanical artist and the author of the book the Art of Living in Season.

She has journeyed from France to various places around the world following God's call alongside her theologian husband, Kevin, who has also been a guest on Apollo's Watered. Their frequent moves have required them to adapt constantly to new rhythms and surroundings.

And amid these transitions, Sylvie has found stability by rooting herself and her family in the natural seasons, the church calendar, and her art, discovering fresh ways to experience God's presence and beauty in each place. So as we enter Advent, we find that Sylvie introduces us to a cherished French tradition, the creche, or nativity scene.

In France, the creche includes the saint on or little saints, representing ordinary people who come together to tell the story of Advent in a deeply personal way. Sylvie's message is an invitation for all of us to slow down, reconnect with God, and engage with the people and places around us.

She encourages us to share meals, pause, and remember that God desires connection not only with him, but with each other in the world he's placed us in. Sylvie, welcome to Apollo. Swattered.

Thank you.

Are you ready for the Fast5?

As ready as I'll ever be.

So because you are from France now, you are living in the prairie land in the Midwest. What is the thing that you miss most about France?

Actually, it's very connected to the book. I think it's the notion of time, which is very different in France and Europe, actually. And here.

Slow pace, intentionality, a slower time pace also allows us to meet people, take the time to go to the shops, for instance, instead of Run to the store once a month and do it every day and sort of incorporate that and your neighbors in your everyday. It's a very different way of living our time. And I think a lot of the time when I talk to foreigners, you know, what do you miss most about home?

No matter what place in the world they come from that's not in the developed world or in the U.S. they say the same, you know, time walking places, taking the time to walk as opposed to get in a car, run out the door, you know.

Now, because you write a lot about food, which I very much appreciated. What is your favorite French dish that you enjoy sharing with friends when they come to your home?

It just simply means chicken and wine sauce. It's a famous dish, simple to make, but, you know, it's. It's beautiful. Chicken stew with mushrooms and herbs and smells wonderful.

Because you are. You're married to. I mean, you're French. You're married to an American. But I know that your husband is. Is a very compassionate man.

He's a very knowledgeable man, but he's not a native French speaker. So what is the one French word that your husband always mispronounces?

Oh, wow, that's an interesting one. He's. He's really a good, good speaker. I never spoke there. Spoke English in front of him for months because his French was so good. So there.

Wow. Okay, well, here we go. How about this one? Number four? When you lived in Scotland, what's the one dish you enjoyed there the most?

Oh, just afternoon teas in a real teapot with real cups and saucers. Scones with jam.

We all have our preferred seasons. What is your favorite season to cook?

For right now, I'd say fall, because it's nice when the weather changes, you know, you get into something more cozy, more, you know, you want to attract people inside instead. Outside in the garden. It's now, it's inside time. So you try to make things that create that moment of appreciation of this new season.

Well, let's use that then to transition into the book itself. And you can see that I have it up here behind me. The Art of Living in Season. What made you want to write the book?

Well, the very first, I suppose, is I felt the need for myself. Oftentimes I think you do that you write a book because you wish somebody had written it.

That sense again with this clash of culture coming to the States from France, and the way I mentioned how I view time, that sense of disconnectedness, somehow here it's much more difficult to Feel part of a story, of, of an important story, especially as a Christian, if everything you do is connected to. Is. Is not necessarily connected to a story or to some seasons anyway, the way that I remembered it. So I tried to start living it this way for myself.

And I. And I tried to understand it too. And so I felt that there is very much as two reasons that I started. That is, I felt the disconnect in our.

In our modern world, with the earth, with the garden. We live in a non. Agrarian society.

One, One thing that I noticed, one, once I was teaching French foreign language to a group of fourth graders and we got into it was I was supposed to teach sort of rudimentary language and culture and try to integrate it. So anyway, I started teaching them food vocabular as well as weather vocabulary.

And I sort of made some, some columns at the blackboard and they were supposed to come and put the various produce, fruit or vegetable into the right column. Winter, summer, spring, what do you think?

And within seconds of having started the activity, I found myself with an argument on my hands which was unrelated to French, definitely not in French either, about, you know, of course there are strawberries in the winter. No, there are not. Yes, there are. And I'm thinking, are we in Chicago or where are we here?

And, and they say, you ask my mom, we have strawberries in the winter. And so I, I was struck with how many kids seemed totally lost as to what of these, you know, which one of these produce grew in which season.

And I thought, oh my gosh, we've really come a long way from when I was growing up. And even if, I mean, we did grow strawberry, but I think even if we hadn't, you just knew, you know, what grows where.

So that disconnect, I think creates an unease, I think, in people. What, what you miss out on. I'm thinking these children, they miss out on.

On the taste of what say, fresh strawberry should taste like, really, when it's in season, warm from the sun. And you. So you miss out on gratitude for one thing, but you also the.

The fact that you belong to a world that, that has a particular order, you know, so there's that, that sort of disconnect as opposed to the rhythms of seasons that you even see in Genesis, you know, from the beginning and even the rhythms in the way Genesis is written. And there was one night and, you know, it was a second day and.

And there's this beautiful rhythm and we are just running through things and we, I think we're missing out on meaning and that's why so many of us feel. Yeah, disconnected. But then there's another disconnection. Is the. The disconnection between the sec. The sacred and the everyday as well.

That I felt so there. That's more like the church, not necessarily the church calendar actually is how Christians can sort of carry their Sunday into their Monday.

You know, we have a Sunday and then, you know, shake hands with everybody. We go home and then we live our. A different kind of life, and we have our.

All the Christmas joy, and then Christmas is over, and then we go back to the ordinary. Or, or. Or we have our morning devotion, say a quiet time, and then we go on and do something else. And there's no connection between the two.

How can we try and connect that? And so the connection to nature or disconnection from it, as well as a disconnection from that, really, how to.

How can we merge, you know, make that the sacred Jesus infiltrate our every day, all the time, in all seasons, in all times of the day. I thought that was a real need. That's something I missed not seeing it more around.

And I thought, okay, well, I'll just start living it for myself and with my girls and with my family. And you can do that. And that is when people started saying, wow, I like the way you do that. You know, you should write something about that.

I've traveled enough to know the sense of belonging for another place and to have experienced what it means to go and to look for the other side of the fence, in a sense. And I know that on the other side of the fence, there is nothing better than what I have here.

And so this is the place where I'm called, and I am called to not just root myself, but root Jesus here.

Well, you tell the story of this almost rootlessness and you saying, I need to find my place here. And you tell it with the story of the manger.

And it's very uniquely from your homeland, this whole concept, but you use it to tell the story of being in a different place and how they are articulating your story, the Christ story, but how we can also tell that story where we are today.

So the.

The way they build, it's really kind of a building construction project in Advent, instead of taking out the crash, as we do in the States oftentimes, and it's all, everybody's there, and you put it in a corner and it's done. That's this always oftentimes in this country. I think you do one thing and it's done. And I Like to make it last.

So at Advent, first time in Advent, you bring out the cash and the little figurines, the little santon, and you, the family takes what is called an Advent walk. And this is for the more traditional families.

I'm not sure that everybody still does it, although I read recently that it's still one of the most sacred traditions. So.

And I think that people may be like, I don't know how much they believe the whole ulterior meaning, but I think there is a sense of that being really, really special and sacred. So you go to the hills.

In my case, it was the hills, but it can be whatever, the countryside and you gather whatever vegetation is typical of your land. So for us it was the time.

Rosemary, the juniper, all these lovely nice smelling things, and you bring them home and then you bring up the little barn, the creche, and you put the, all these herbs around it. And there is a very deep, as I said, maybe subconscious, but I think it's more than that.

This feeling that this is a way of planting the creche in your land.

And a lot of what I write in my book is part of it is true, true, truly how people see it and partly how I've learned, how I've, I've sort of interpreted it for myself to make sense of life, to find meaning.

But anyway, we plant this crash in our land and then, and then you do not put the baby Jesus and everything, because as I said, time has a different value. Over there, Jesus is not there yet. They are elsewhere. They are traveling on a donkey. They are not in the manger scene.

The holy family is not, and neither are the kings. But there's all these little figurines that are about. Yeah, big.

Oh, there we go. Okay. Whoops.

That's my little shepherdess here.

But they are about 3 inch tall and they, they are made of clay and they represent all sorts of people from the 19th century, a 19th century village in the south of France. And they come and they, I mean, traditionally, I mean, so they are there in the creche and they are.

You just spread them around and you kind of decorate it with your plants.

Traditionally, Christmas Eve, they enter a pilgrimage once they hear the good news from the shepherd and they come to Jesus and they present him with gifts and they are, they're all dressed 19th century, because that's when this story started, this tradition. And they come with gifts that are ordinary gifts from simple people, this kind of farmers population there.

But they are still the gifts that come from their land, from their daily work. And they bring that to Jesus. That's the important thing.

So you plant this place in your land, and then you have gifts that come from your land, what we call the terroir, the soil that grows everything that we have. And you present that to Jesus. So this is so meaningful.

Well, you're rooting. You're rooting the Christmas story in your time and place with the people that are around.

And even when you mentioned how the story started in the 19th century, how people started to do this practice with these. With these figurines, it's something that many picked up. And then they would continue to do this practice with their entire family.

So this became a very familial thing to create meaning where we're at. I have so many questions about that. Even as you mentioned in the book how they've added certain characters over time.

Like post Covid, they added a nurse, which I thought was just wonderful.

Yeah.

So how do you get these characters? Are these things that are sold in stores? Did you make these characters? How do we get a.

Like, if someone wanted to do this, I'm imagining doing this with a family. Or do we just take the traditional manger scene? Because you have. And how many characters are there? There's a lot.

There's a lot. So, yes, they're called Saint Ounier. So these are. The people who make them are called Saint Onier. Artisans. A lot of them.

It's kind of a second little job. But there are now a hundred recognized santo makers, I'll call them, in the south of France, in just this little area.

And they come in different quality. Some are higher craftsmen, say more artistic. Others are simpler, but. And then they come in different because of it.

They come in different prices as well, because they can be sort of costly, depending on kind of the higher end. But to some extent, it's not costly for those people necessarily in Provence, because when. I mean, they usually don't buy everything at once.

It comes down from the family. You know, I have the ones from my parents.

And then occasionally you replace one or you buy one more because you have something meaningful that happened in your life and you want to mark it. So, like, you're a nurse during COVID so now you're gonna buy a nurse. And that will always remind you that these two I did for Jesus.

If you are a Christian, that's how, you know, you see that. And for your children to see that as well is tremendously. I mean, it is a little a parable, really, for the Christian life, for the disciple.

Everything that we do we do as unto Christ? We bring it to him. So, yes, these centaur makers, as I said, there are a number of them and they sell them.

There is Christmas markets for them during the whole of Advent, people refill them. But all of them, no matter what the quality and the price, they have a few things in common. One is they must they all made from the clay of the land.

And everybody, even non believers, I think, sense the meaningfulness of that because they represent us and we also come from the earth in the garden, the initial garden. And so they have to come from the clay of the land. That's very special.

It is just interesting to me how we all have these practices and rituals that we do in order to communicate meaning. And yours is, as you even mention in the book, it's for everyday saints.

These aren't just for the intellectuals, the theologians, the pastors, the professional clergy. This is for everyday people giving what they can from where they are.

And you hearken back to the 19th century, but that's not something that should be relegated to the 19th century, that we do that today.

Right, Right.

So how can we help do that today?

So I'm glad you brought up the everyday saint. So this Santo, one thing I forgot to mention for the listeners here, Santo means little saint in. In the original language.

And I actually struggled for a while to try and figure out how am I going to call that in English. And so we came on upon the. The everyday saint formula, which I think works really well.

It does.

The one thing that you continue to do, and this is where I need your help a bit, it's not only telling the Christmas story, but you tell it through the year.

And you also use the church calendar for those that are unfamiliar, like the church calendar, they might have grown up in a place where the church calendar was unfamiliar. Was that a practice that was familiar to you? Just using the church calendar for a variety of different things?

Yes. I mean, France. Yes. That is a strange thing. It's still an old land in a sense.

I mean, they're hanging on to their traditions, whether they are a modern country or not, whether they are a secular country or not. So that means that. And I think it's still the case now, from what I occasionally ask, like I have a brother in France.

I never knew, for instance, what. Let's just say. Let's just call it Ascension was never knew. You know, it's kind of a word on the calendar, but Ascension, we never had school, ever.

It's a bank holiday. And that's why there Are still people around here? Some sometimes they say, now what day is Ascension again here?

You know, And I'm telling them Thursday. So Thursday, it's a Thursday because throughout my childhood, the Thursday of Ascension, we never had school. So they respect it.

And, and that's also another interesting cultural difference is a bank holiday here is often a time to go and do some sh. I mean, go to the sale, the bank, everything is open.

Whereas in France, and I think it's in the old world, a bank holiday was a day when actually the banks were closed because the church doors were opened for people to go and those who were practicing could go and, and to church for ascension, let's say. And it was on a Thursday. And those who didn't go to church, they just had a day off from school.

But why is it so important for us to have a theology of place and be rooted?

I think that. Well, simply so I always like to go back to the garden. As I said, this is where I started my, my initial Christian church. God gave us place.

God made the heavens and the earth and the seasons, and he gave us food, fruitful food and for delight, just all of that. And it was all in a place. It's even the first few verses in the Bible situates us there with the four rivers and so on.

And I think then when we were chased from the garden, we became displaced. And throughout the Old Testament, God in his goodness keeps trying to woo Israel with a place. I will give you a place with.

With milk and honey, and I will be your God and you shall be my people. And he gives them also a sort of a calendar, you know, in Leviticus about all sorts of celebrations to remember who he is.

And some of them seem to be even seasonal. I mean, that's fascinating. And then lo and behold, to try and organize his big liberation, he comes back in place.

He could have done it in another way, but Bethlehem is the place where he's coming. And that continues to be the promise. Bethlehem is coming to us in a place. This is why it's important, I think, with a manger to plant him in place.

And then of course, we are told about the great restoration, where we will have a new place. So that is so important. And I think oftentimes we tend to spiritualize kind of our new life is kind of.

I don't know what we think, but there's no physical place, which is why I know some of the modern agrarian people have said the problem why oftentimes Christians don't take care of land is they don't believe in the importance of that place. And I just love the idea of God continually wooing Israel with a gift of land.

And not just that he gives them a gift of land, but then he also gives them the instruction, this is the manual, how to take care of your land. But lo and behold, they don't read the manual or they don't keep it up because they can't, of course, they are fallen.

So anyway, yes, the theology of places from the beginning to the end seems to be there in the Bible, which explains, I think, our longing for place. You know, I mean, homesickness is, Is a huge thing. We want. We want a place, you know, home sweet home.

I mean, you think of all these, you know, that nesting instinct. It's very important.

And you mentioned it is an art, though it's not a science. And that's what I love about it. When you, you called it the.

The art of watchful waiting, I mean, you have your own art, but the artful of watchful waiting, the art of giving, the art of welcoming the stranger. Why are these, why is it an art to be able to do this and not a science?

I found that question interesting. So I'm not sure that I mentioned the art of Evre is the French word for art of living.

So I use the art of living as a kind of automatic translation almost in my head. And to me, I don't know, I've been living like that for so long, I didn't think that they need to be defined necessarily.

So out of living is, I think it's not something that happens to us necessarily, first of all, but it's something in which we are actually involved ourselves. We have a role to play. It's. God gives us creativity and he helps us to choose how to live. And this is the art of living.

There is a fittingness in the art of living, sort of harmony with. With the way God has made things. As I was saying before, he's given us clear instructions and so on.

And so it's a way of fitting harmoniously into God's system, God's world. That's the art of living.

And then when you introduce the seasons, well, obviously it's the art of fitting harmoniously into this beautiful system which also has seasons. And it is here. It's a way of inhabiting, let's say, maybe or God's place, God's time, in order to flourish. That's the art of living.

So this is the kind of the title, this is the big thing. But in, in each of my chapter is kind of a subheading to the art of living.

Each of them involves the practice of living, of the art of living in one area of life or one season in the church calendar, or one particular vocation. Now, how do I do that now that I understood the idea that it's all really about fitting, the fittingness of being part of this beautiful system.

How does it work when. When it's in the middle of the winter or when I live in Florida and I don't have fun things to put in the major scene? Or how does it work when I.

For those who work the land or for those who cook, or for those who are old, older and those who are younger. So each chapter, in a sense, addresses that in that little subheading.

And in each chapter I have placed a different little saint, a little Sant that I think addresses that problem. And either he or she addresses it because there is a story behind that particular charact of them do. Or if not, I make up a story that I think.

I think that person must be feeling like that right now. And I so sympathize. And so how. How are they to go on now considering that they are feeling, you know, unhappy or old and.

Or lonely or whatever it is that they are feeling, or really raving happy. So, so the, the. The art of living really, it invites, in a sense, the Lord to come in.

I invite God to come in my life and transform it and make it, make it.

And for me to see a little glimpse of him and maybe even to demonstrate a little glimpse of him in the way that I do all these things to other people. Because it's not enough to just speak the Word. I think it's also. This is how we show it as well. But it's not just.

We oftentimes think it's about the work we do, but I think it's how we do things. It's how we give how the Sontaun come to Jesus with their gift, each of them. The important thing is not so much what is my gift.

I mean, once you found it, it's not about comparing gifts, in a sense, but it's more about how do I do that, how do I invite him in? And then which is what happens in the manger. We invite him in our land.

And it concretizes, by the way, the whole idea of, you know, asking Jesus in your heart. And that seems to be also one of those final things. You do that and you're done.

Whereas you invite him in every day in your land, in Your life, in your heart, through the gifts that you're giving him, through the way you work and interact with your neighbors. And somehow it transforms our ordinary into something extraordinary, becomes meaningful. I think it makes ordinary meaningful.

That's what we're all after and reveals these little glimpses of God's beauty in our everyday.

I resonate with what you're doing. And I think in the church, we have uncritically. I know we have.

We have uncritically imbibed the rhythms of this world and allowed them to dictate to us. Because our theology has been a heaven theology, not a flourishing of humanity as we follow Christ.

Or as Dallas Willard said, the gospel wasn't meant to get us into heaven, but to get to heaven into us.

Yes.

And that's what you're advocating for, is how do we practice it in the everyday? The Brother Lawrence practicing the presence of God.

And how do we offer, in a technical way, a counter catechesis with practices that actually help us to push back against how the world is trying to conform it into their image. That's why the church calendar is so important.

We go forward to go backward, that it's just as relevant now as it was then, even more so because the world is continually trying to disembody us, to turn us into gyro vagues, to force us into this theology of hurry.

In a way, that's precisely what I'm trying to do by bridging that difference between the sacred and the mundane. Eating somehow has become a commodity or sometimes a bit of a nightmare. We don't want to eat. We're on a.

You know, there are so many things happening around eating or sadly, of course, a lot of people are deprived of food or don't have enough. But if we see eating as a. As a. As part of, again, this restoration that.

The thing that disappeared at the garden, that connection to the earth and to God, that relationship between God, people and plants, you know, and we, we are. We're given a body in the image of God and we've forgotten that peace somehow, that we.

We can just stuff anything in our body, whether it's protein powders or energy drinks or whatever. And that. I think that's. Again, that's another disconnect as opposed to, you know, sit down, eat.

The minute you sit down, you almost feel like giving grace. Whereas if you, if you eat on your way somewhere, you know, when I, even I sometimes do, I don't stop. I don't, you know, the.

So the gratitude is gone already, right? There, that's disconnection from God. And then the opportunity to fellowship with others is also gone. And they do.

I mean, the research now shows that children would do a lot better if they could eat at the table with their parents, you know, at least more often.

So that's restoration then goes much deeper than just restoring the soul, you know, and I think we do through hospitality then at the table, we can show what it really means. This restoration is a whole thing. It affects all of us.

One of the things that we've tried to do at Apollos Water is we talk a lot about hospitality and what does that look like?

And one of the things we've found is that as the nations have come to the west and around the world, that they are reawakening this idea of hospitality that they have embedded within their own cultural pieces, even if they're not Christians, that we would do well to listen to, because there is something about knowing the other person about eating to the glory of God as, as it's there in the book that was certainly in the New Testament, where Jesus, of course, is eating and spending time because you get to know a person as you eat with them, as you take time. But it is such a countercultural practice today that very few do it. It's, it's really a lost art.

But does the calendar, keeping the calendar and keeping this, just this, an awareness of it, help us to be able to at least start to make those changes? I mean, how do we go about making those changes to be more intentional in that type of hospitality and restoration?

Well, I think perhaps a little bit at a time, certainly. I think we don't need to suddenly, you know, have, if you've never eaten at the table with your family or almost never, you just don't.

I'm not going to do it every day. Suddenly you just decide, okay, maybe one, once a week we can do that.

Turn, turn off the tv, make, make something that, that we know is healthy for us to farm side, see what, what's growing. And, and, and it's really a shift where this is not a commodity.

This is not something that we're trying to do as fast as possible, maybe even doing the dishes together. It's amazing how much some of these simple tasks that we have eliminated, they've also eliminated meaning basically.

I remember talking oftentimes with some of the professors when we were in Cambridge for a sabbatical term. One of the things they liked most and then missed most was standing around the kitchen sink and doing dishes. Then they went back to them.

And they said, oh, we're going to keep doing that at home. And they can't because A, they have a busy life, B, so much easier to put it in dishwasher and get on with the next task.

So we're always about one about task, task oriented as opposed to living and dwelling. I think we need to shift our vocabulary. You know, it's not about accomplishing, it's about experiencing the presents, as you say.

And I find that at Christmas it's that I see people can't wait to get the Christmas tree out and then the whole house cleaned up, you know, so that we don't have to worry about that during Advent. So usually happens before. And I get the organization, I certainly do. That's important too. And then the day after Christmas it disappears.

But it's always let's do it and then we're done. I am hearing this, let's do it and then we're done. So I kind of like to drag my Advent and I'm not looking to being done.

I'm looking to living through it and learning through it and listening to God through it. That's, you know, I think it's.

And then, and then tell my children the stories as they see that no, Jesus is not in the manger yet because that's not how the story goes. And then wait for epiphany to put the magi in there. And there is, there is a lot of peaceful sort of. It's a peaceful teaching tool to keep.

A multi generational perspective.

Well, again, I like to go back to the meaningfulness. I think our older people have lost. Oftentimes they are disillusioned. They don't have a place place nobody listens to them.

But the idea that they can be unfolded in the story, in the family story, be part of, you know, say for instance, the Advent walk or the dinners. Participate in their simple way, even if they are getting a little tired.

And some of that is to have a story to tell the younger ones, you know, to have to give them so that the older people have a future and a hope, even if they're on their way out. This is, you know, Jeremiah's words, this is so important. And we, oh my, I mean we really, we mistreat. I think we neglect that perspective.

And some churches have, you look at the activities that they have. So they have activities for the, for the elderly and sometimes it's entertainment activity.

You know, will, will do this for you as opposed to, well, who, who would like to be involved in you Know, in doing something for the church, be. Take a part in Sunday school or whatever, instead of being fed as though you don't have anything to contribute anymore. So meaning is huge.

And I think for the young people, too, it's teaching them respect for. For one thing, but also to show them that this story that their parents are talking about, the parents are not the only ones who live that story.

It's. It's been around.

And other people have done it differently because they maybe are from a different culture or a different age, but it is the same story. And that even kind of awakens your imagination. And they could say, oh, wow, so they didn't do it the same way. So how could I do it?

But still with Jesus at the center.

Of it, how do we help find our footing to put this into practice? I mean, the whole book, in some respect is about that. But what are some easy steps that we can. Just small steps we can do?

Yeah. Well, I would say I would encourage churches to embrace the church calendar.

I think oftentimes, if you're not in kind of a high church denomination, there is a feeling that this is not us or this. I don't know, people have some fears about it. I tell pastors, look, there is nothing sacred about the church calendar by any means.

The church calendar is just a way of planting Jesus in your life, of inscribing God's time into our time, which is really beautiful thing. So first of all, I would say, and I've talked to a group of pastors who said, but how. How can I do that? How can I tell my parishioners? And I.

I said, you know, just write out just a little introductory paragraph. Even in the service of. What is it? Order of service sheet about. Oh, we are in this new season. This is what it means. This is why it's important.

And maybe even throw out some ideas of, I don't know, have small group discussions or of how to do it at home. But the church certainly, I think starting the church calendar is a good thing. And then homes. I did it because we.

I did it especially because I was trying to sort of follow, including there, some of my French traditions, which there were not too many around, and just try to live it out. I mean, we did. What did we do with our girls one day, one year? We did Monday, Thursday. We have pictures of them.

You know, we did it at home and we explained to them what it meant, and they were all dressed up and, you know, daddy passed the cup around and. And just, you know, because the church was not doing it. And we felt, we want. We want to communicate that.

What is something that you hope that God does with this book?

Well, I hope that it might teach people or inspire them or awaken their imagination to acknowledge, appreciate and adopt the Christian art of living in season. To. To learn to live in God's great story at all times. Wake up in the morning and remember, oh yeah, that's my story.

Even you look on social media and you remember, no, that's not my story. I mean, I can still look at it, but I belong to a greater story.

Embrace the seasons and see the fittingness of the whole, the whole story flourish in it. And, and also just remember that you have a gift to give to Jesus no matter what it is.

It might be a different one through different seasons, personals of, seasons of life, but you have a gift to bring him every day. And it will, I think, give meaning to people's life. I'm hoping it will and, and it will transform their everyday into a joyful pilgrimage and.

And transform their neighbors pilgrimage as well.

Those are good words. So we want to thank you for coming on the show. How can people get the book?

I have a website. They can click on it. There is ivp, of course, sells it, Intervalsity Press and yes, Amazon and other Christian book places.

Awesome. Well, I really enjoyed the book. I liked the practical nature of it.

I love how you say to live in this story and I even like how you were talking about social media because of course social media is always trying to entice us in a variety of different ways. But I like how you even spoke back against it and said, that's not my story.

So how do we live according to the story that God has for us and to be a part of that greater story, that gospel story where we exalt Christ and be a participant in his, the restoration of all things. So really it's a good, practical way to do it. It was nice to engage with you and have you on the show.

It's delightful and delight to have you on the show. Thank you for coming on. Apollo's watered.

Thank you for having me.

As we wrap up today's conversation with Sylvie Van Hooser, we are reminded of the importance of rooting ourselves in God's presence through the rhythms of nature, the church calendar and community.

Sylvie's story encourages us to slow down, connect with the world around us, and embrace simple, meaningful traditions like the Krach that can help ground our faith as we do enter into this Advent season. May her journey inspire us to look for God's beauty and presence in the ordinary moments and to reconnect with those around us in deeper ways.

Thanks for joining us on Apollos Watered, and we look forward to seeing you next time where we share all of what God has been doing over the past several months and give a vision for the year ahead. God bless you and have a great day. Stay watered everybody.