Hello, thinkers, readers, and tea drinkers, and welcome to speaking with Joy.

I'm your host, Dr. Joy Clarkson, and this is a podcast dedicated to art, literature, theology, and good conversations.

It is my hope to create an hour of sanity, fascination, and beauty in our hectic and cynical world.

So make yourself a cup of tea, and let's dive in. She did not cry, I cannot, I am not worthy, nor I have not the strength.

She did not submit with gritted teeth, raging, coerced.

Bravest of all humans, consent illumined her, the room filled with its light hello everybody and welcome back to speaking

with joy this is my second podcast back after a long hiatus in which as you will have heard if you

listen to the previous podcast i have had quite a full last few months finishing finishing the PhD, starting up a job, and resettling

life post-P-H-D.

So I'm excited to be back with you all.

As I mentioned last week, the new plan is to post two episodes a week.

We'll see how long I keep up with that.

And I am always tempted to do a whole series of Advent podcasts.

But I have lots of kind of backlogged episodes that I've recorded. So I'm going to just do this

one episode on Advent and then continue to start posting some of the other episodes that I've

recorded ahead of time. But I couldn't keep myself from doing at least one episode

thinking about some of the art and history and beauty surrounding the season of Advent.

So today I'm going to, like my old classic podcast, share a piece of visual, musical, and

literary art with you surrounding a theme. And that theme will today

be specifically Advent. I'll be looking at the enunciation in my visual and poetry piece,

a bit of which I just quoted to you from Denise Levertov. And then we'll be having a lovely conversation

with my musician brother Joel Clarkson about Advent hymns and carols.

...