With the season of Advent, the coming of Christ is imminent, and following the contours of the season leads through a rich time of preparation for God-with-us in the Incarnation. R. S. Thomas, a poet of waiting and anticipation, can be a profound guide for this season. His spiritual and poetic trajectory of discovering the presence of God - divine ‘frequencies’ - even in apparent absence, can help lead us into an Advent landscape of surrender, open-hearted discovery, epiphany and encounter. This collection of 28 reflections on Thomas’s poetry travels through the season, and follows one of the traditional patterns of themes explored in each Sunday of Advent: a Carmelite pattern of waiting, accepting, journeying and birthing.

'Carys Walsh is an excellent guide. Her reflections are wise and informed. Her love of the poems translates into infectious, poignant and inspiriting commentaries for each day. Through Thomas’s work she reminds us of the Advent truth that God is never the object of our knowledge but the cause of our wonder. This is a book to cherish into Christmas.’ -- Mark Oakley, Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge

Carys Walsh has worked in ministerial selection and formation for many years, including in the Ministry Division of the Church of England, as a psychotherapist, as a tutor in Christian Spirituality at St Mellitus, and in the Diocese of Peterborough, where she is also an assistant priest.