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Advent Resources

Classes are canceled across Seattle today, my husband got the phone call at 5:00 a.m. notifying him (he teaches high school) and Seattle University posted their announcement soon after.  Apparently even though there hasn’t been much snowfall in the city, the low temperatures have made for icy and dangerous driving conditions.   Snow and below freezing temperatures are unusual around here and the city is not equipped to deal well, especially since Seattle is built on 7 hills, which makes for even more treacherous driving. Today was to be my last class session and I am sad not to have a chance to gather together with my students one more time.

Some of my favorite Advent resources for prayer and reflection to help you prepare for the season:

Night Visions by Jan Richardson (sadly Amazon says this is out of print and they only have one used copy for $75! But it looks like you can order directly from Jan’s website for $19 plus $4.56 shipping.  I know this is pricey for a book, but it includes her collage work and reflections and is truly my favorite Advent resource.  Her book In Wisdom’s Path is also wonderful and covers the whole year more briefly).

The Vigil by Wendy Wright, she writes beautifully and I have all of her books on the different liturgical seasons. This book includes reflections for the season of Christmas as well.

Watch for the Light edited by Philip Yancey (with reflections by Thomas Merton, Oscar Romero, and many others) is a nice resource because it gives you many different voices.

Pax Christi  has a pamphlet titled Awakening the Prophet Within: Reflections for Advent 2006. You can read a sample of these reflections here.

A lovely article from Sojourners on The Habit of Advent.

The Episcopal Diocese of Washington has an online Advent calendar.

To help you take things a little less seriously, Dave Walker has an Advent Calendar Blog from 2005.

Britt-Arnhild shares one of her favorite Advent traditions.

What are your favorite resources and readings for Advent?

-Christine Valters Paintner 

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12 Responses

  1. Christine–
    you have given yet another reminder of what a wonderful resource YOU are! thank you for sharing these and helping me stay motivated to keep writing, learning and seeking! blessings to you and thank you!

  2. Delurking (better late than never!)…thanks so much for all those great Advent resources…I do a Beliefnet dialogue group on Advent every year, and I’ll pass these along.

  3. I’m sorry for both you and your students that you won’t be able to gather once more.

    Thank you for these wonderful resources.

  4. Hi Milton, Welcome and thanks for the resource and for the link!

    You are welcome Britt, such a lovely idea. I tried to comment on your post, but I have been unable to leave comments at Typepad for a week now, I keep getting an error message. It may be an AOL browser problem.

  5. Christine

    I’ve always loved Madeleine L’Engle’s book THAT IRRATIONAL SEASON, which is a good resourse for the whole church year. It begins and ends with Advent reflections.

    I love what you’re doing here. I added a link on my blog.

    Peace,
    Milton