Advent Resources

At Thanksgiving, my mom brought an Advent calendar for each child--the good kind of calendar, the kind with a chocolate for each day. But then the family with 2 children left before my mom remembered to give them the calendars. I had a brief hope that Mom would give me one of them, even though I know the chocolate probably wouldn't live up to my fussy standards.

Happily, there are Advent resources all across the web--and they're calorie free.

One of my new favorites is the one with amazing photos from the Hubble telescope. What an amazing glimpse into the cosmos!

For several years, I've loved Jan Richardson's The Advent Door. Her artwork accompanies the blog and serves as a wonderful juxtaposition. She does amazing things with paper.

LutheranChik started an Advent blog this year. What a treat to have a daily writing from her. I've always loved her perspective, but in recent years, she's blogged less over here and seems to have given up her food blog altogether.

But maybe keeping up with something on a daily basis is too much. Maybe you'd just like a weekly meditation. Abbey of the Arts is doing a once-a-week meditation.

Many people assume that academics have a nice, long Christmas break, and while I've had Christmas breaks, I've never had much of an Advent break. My memories of Advent are ones of lots of paper grading, lots of meetings, graduation duties, and finally, a few days before Christmas, a blessed break. Not much time for Advent contemplation.

The trick during Advent, as with other time periods of our lives, is to find some moments that we can steal away for our spiritual enrichment. What I like about these Internet resources is that I can do them when I'm stuck at work. No one needs to know that I'm taking a moment for Advent meditation, unlike, say, if I moved an Advent wreath into my office and lit candles. I can take a few moments to prepare the crooked pathways of my heart. All it takes is a few moments to till the soil of my spirit, to prepare myself to bear good fruit. And these resources help.