The light of God is already inside you.
Phaino is a year of daily readings grounded in the Gospels, 1 John, 2 John, Jude, Revelation, and the early Christian texts preserved at Nag Hammadi and in the Berlin Codex: the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Apocryphon of John, and the Sophia of Jesus Christ.
Each of the 365 entries is a short reflection, something to sit with over coffee, read aloud to someone you love, return to on a hard day. The entries are numbered rather than dated, so you can begin on any day.
Phaino Advent gathers twenty-five of them for December 1 through Christmas Day, each grown from a passage in the New Testament, with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the longest night of the year given their own pages.
Phaino for Youth gathers fifty-two of them, one a week for a year, each grown from a passage in the four Gospels, with three discussion questions under every reading. It is for ages 9 and up, alone, at home with a family, or as a year of Sunday school or youth group.
The theology is simple and whole. God is light. The light lives in every person, everywhere, always. It cannot be broken, earned, or lost. The work of the spiritual life is not to earn the light or reach it. The work is to remember what has been here the whole time.
For the tired. For the doubting. For the ones who have been told the light is not for them.
The canon
- The Gospel of Matthew
- The Gospel of Mark
- The Gospel of Luke
- The Gospel of John
- 1 John
- 2 John
- Jude
- Revelation
- The Gospel of Thomas
- The Gospel of Mary
- The Apocryphon of John
- The Sophia of Jesus Christ
One entry also draws from the Psalms, where a specific phrase was the source the reflection grew from. Phaino Advent draws only from the New Testament. Phaino for Youth draws only from the four Gospels.
The author
J. L. Wright is the executive director of a nonprofit youth outreach. Phaino is his first book; Phaino Advent and Phaino for Youth followed it.
How the book was made
Phaino was written in collaboration with an AI as a writing partner. The theology, the canon, and the editorial judgment are the author's. Every entry passed through human revision and approval.
For a full account, including what the AI did and did not do, read the author's note.