BORN FOR THIS: A COSMIC ADVENT

through a cosmic lens—one that sees the Christ not only born in Bethlehem but also awakening within each of us. From manger to ministry, the life of Jesus is a spiritual blueprint for our own journey. While the term or concept of Advent is not found in the Bible, it is a season of anticipation that draws powerful gifts for us from the Christmas story. This is the season of sacred becoming—an invitation to prepare space within ourselves for the birthing of divine light. The traditional Advent themes of hope, peace, love, and joy are living energies that nourish the soul and lead us to and through unexpected places.

- JACQUIE FERNÁNDEZ is an award-winning filmmaker and writer who serves as senior minister at Unity Church of Overland Park. She is the founder of Folx with Faith, an LGBTQIA+ affinity group that gathers for spiritual discussion and healing from religious trauma.

JACQUIE FERNÁNDEZ is an award-winning filmmaker and writer who serves as senior minister at Unity Church of Overland Park. She is the founder of Folx with Faith, an LGBTQIA+ affinity group that gathers for spiritual discussion and healing from religious trauma.

Take the manger, for example. We romanticize it as a wooden cradle with fresh straw, but it was a livestock feeding trough—earthy, humble, unglamorous, and likely carved from local limestone or shaped out of existing rock form. And yet, that’s where divine presence chose to enter the world: an infant delivered to a bed of filthy stone. Not in a palace, not in comfort or control, but in a space made ready by necessity. The Christ is born where there is room.