Scott Erickson - Honest Advent: Awakening to the Wonder of God-with-Us Then, Here, and Now

There is something so enticingly refreshing about the perspective and conversation of Advent through the feminine lens. Scott Ericksons reflection of the Advent season through the connection of the misrepresented women in the Savior story not only is healing and restorative but also brings us back into the story, where the feminine and the divine have always been.

ARIELLE ESTORIA, poet, author, speaker

Scott Erickson does a perfect job of removing the current taste of stale commercialization and male centeredness from Advent. He then brings back in the beauty, mystery, and wonder that this season is meant to inspire. If you want an Advent made for our moment of social and racial awakening, and one that doesnt oversimplify, this is it!

PROPAGANDA AND DR. ALMA ZARAGOZA-PETTY, The Red Couch Podcast

When I was an evangelical, I thought Christmas took too much emphasis away from Easter. When I was an atheist, I thought Christmas reinforced an absurd fairy tale. Me and Christmas, well, its complicated. Thats why I love Honest Advent. In this meditation on the vulnerability of God through the strange mystery of Christs incarnation, Scott invites us not to master that mystery, but to experience it.

MIKE MCHARGUE, author of Youre a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass) and host of Ask Science Mike podcast

Beautiful. Evocative. A wake-up call to the mystery of life.

JOHN MARK COMER, author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

Im no Scrooge, but the last thing I want to read is another book on the Christmas story. Luckily, thats not what this book is about. Scott Ericksons beautifully crafted book helped me see God-with-Us with fresh eyes. Honest Advent is no shallow seasonal gift book; its an invitation to explore the divine flourishes of everyday human vulnerabilities. A transformative read, regardless of the time of year.

JONATHAN MERRITT, author of Learning to Speak God from Scratch and contributing writer to The Atlantic

Through striking visuals and conversational prose, Scott Erickson has created a doorway between the foreign and the familiar, the simple and the complex, holiday and the everyday. On any day of the year, but especially through the time of Advent, land on any page in this book to find a prayer, a bridge, an invitation into what is coming and out of the boxes we put around God.

HILLARY MCBRIDE, PhD, RCC, therapist, researcher, and author

Scott Ericksons iconographic works serve as portals to the kingdom of heaven within us. In this collection of art and reflection, were reminded what makes our hearts that heaventhe God who comes nearer than we are to ourselves. Ill be opening these doors with wonder and gratitude. Thanks, Scott, youre such a good doorman!

BRAD JERSAK, author of IN: Incarnation & Inclusion, Abba & Lamb

We know of few other voices that so powerfully bring back the luster to tarnished, sacred things. Scott Ericksons Advent meditations will be an evergreen gift for the weary soul, calling out fresh and upending wonder at the incarnation, what it meant then, and how we are to be now.

JAY AND KATHERINE WOLF, authors of Hope Heals and Suffer Strong

Readers on a quest for information can sometimes find themselves devouring books too quickly without taking time to chew, not fully tasting the words and their meanings. Scott Ericksons drawings force us to slow down and open up to truth in a new way. Advent is a season for slow contemplative reflection, and this book will be a tasty treat to savor and to help us reflect on the greatest wonder of allGod becoming one of us.

PERI AND BRIAN ZAHND, authors of Every Scene by Heart and Postcards from Babylon

There are so many things I love about Scott Erickson, and this Advent book brings them all together. I sense that he is always doing his own work, learning how to live in the body and mind hes been given, making sense of the world through all of the meanspsychology, sociology, art, science, spirituality, and wonderso that when he turns his lens toward something, anything, out come these well-formed, beautifully connected scenes. This lens, turned toward Mary, Jesus, and incarnation, helps me break through the incredibly solidified narratives of Christmas into something that moves me again and helps me connect with the real earth, the blood, sweat, and tearsthis happened here, on this earth, in our way, through human birth.

SARA GROVES, recording artist, advocate

As a follower of Jesus who has spent the majority of my professional life (thirty years) working alongside my Jesus-following, Jewish wife within very dark, hostile Islamic regimes, we have celebrated many Christmas/Hanukkah seasons hidden away with curtains drawn and doors locked, lighting candles and reading the Scriptures. If Honest Advent had been available then, I would have handed out the book to the Muslim community and walked through the season with them. What a beautiful, timely work of art!

JAMIE AND DONNA WINSHIP, cofounders, Identity Exchange

With the specific audacity and humility of an artist, Scott Ericksons captivating words and images flip, spin, and reconsider the reality of God-with-Us and the transformative notion of that presence in, with, and through our humanity. He invites us to look afresh and find newness and wonder in the Advent story through the female bodynot through its typical maligning but as a way God chose to be with us.

MARLITA HILL, author of Defying Discord

Honest Advent unearths the beauty and power of lifes deepest truths woven into the ancient Christmas stories. Through his gorgeously provocative illustrations and authentically insightful teachings, Scott Erickson rescues us from the commercialization of Christmas by breathing much-needed new life into Advents themes and ideas. The most wonderful time of the year now has the most wonderful piece of art to go with it.

COLBY MARTIN, author of The Shift and cohost of The Kate and Colby Show

As an often flustered mom in the throes of raising four young kids, I connected so deeply with Honest Advent because it reveals the nearness of God through a painful but beautiful mess I am very familiar withpregnancy, birth, and motherhood. Though 2020 will be remembered for a lot of hardship and trauma, this book helped draw me closer to Immanuelwhat a gift!

SUSIE GAMEZ, speaker, writer, and an okay mom

The primary job of an artist is to see. And while a great deal of the excitement around Scott Erickson has had to do with his talent for (and with) imagery, what has made his work vital and unique has always been his visiona vision for God in the world, for people in the shadow of God, and for people in relationship with one another. This beautiful book is the fullest expression of the kind of vision that makes Scott a gift. Good artists have a knack for clearly and engrossingly letting us in on how they see their world. Great artists change the way we see ours. Scott is becoming a great artist.

JUSTIN MCROBERTS, author of It Is What You Make of It

As someone who has been in the work of shedding the layered baggage of my religious past, Ive also been looking for opportunities to reclaim what is good and beautiful and true. This book is a reminder of everything good and beautiful and true about Advent. Not necessarily easy or pretty, but good and trueand our world certainly needs more good and true these days. I am grateful for the reclamation that this work will bring to so many people for Advent and beyond.