Online Advent calendars offer daily moment of reflection
Episcopal News Service. December 2, 2009 [120209-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
They may not be sprinkled with glitter or have a piece of chocolate behind their doors, but this season's collection of online Advent calendars offer the computer-bound an oasis of quiet reflection in the midst of tracking online shopping bargains and YouTube videos of cats in Santa hats.
The Advent calendar tradition began in the early 1800s in Germany as Lutherans began physically counting down the days until Christmas. Some people lit a candle each day, which may also have been the start of the tradition of Advent wreaths. A German printer, Gerhard Lang, is said to have created the first paper Advent calendars in 1908.
In keeping with the movement of the tradition to the Internet, the German printer Richard Sellmar Verlag offers an online Advent calendar museum here.
Meanwhile, this year's selection of online Advent calendars range from the complex to the simple. Among the calendars are:
* The Episcopal Diocese of Washington's 2009 version begins with a brilliantly-colored nativity scene that is actually a child's puzzle by a Sri Lankan cooperative working with SERRV International. SERRV sends volunteer designers to work with native craftspeople and local arts and crafts cooperatives. Together, they create pieces that are marketed internationally.
Each day's door opens to reveal a figure from Washington National Cathedral's collection of more than 500 nativity sets, as well as a meditation from Episcopal Café. The calendar invites viewers to contribute to the diocese's annual Children to Children Advent Fund, which supports church-sponsored sewing ministries in Swaziland.
* Trinity Church Wall Street's 2009 calendar offers a video each day produced by Trinity Wall Street as part of a series called Anglican Communion Stories. The segments showcase Anglicans working for a better world. Clicking on each day's door opens a window with a video player for viewing the segment. The window also offers users a way to get involved in the highlighted ministry.
"Within the Anglican Communion right now, there is tension over matters of human sexuality and authority, and stories about those disagreements often obscure the stories of hope," says an explanation of Trinity's calendar. "In that context, and in the season of Advent, which is seen as a season of expectation before Jesus’ birth, this becomes a calendar that lets the people of the Anglican Communion say to the world, expect hope. In so doing, the people also say -- through their actions -- that rumors of the Communion's demise are greatly exaggerated."
* The Church of England continues the theme of involvement in the midst of the waiting of Advent with its 2009 calendar "Why We are Waiting" here. The calendar invites people to take five minutes to change the world this Advent by following the "tread gently" challenges and video stories behind each door. Daily Bible passages and prayers accompany the lifestyle challenges and stories from across the Church of England and beyond. Each day features a video story from a different diocese or agency.
* The Diocese of Maryland's 2009 calendar features daily mediations from diocesan leaders, centered Advent themes and the church's calendar of saints. In the opening meditation diocesan Bishop Suffragan John L. Rabb suggested that "all of the data to which we are exposed does not give us a deeper understanding. In fact it may keep us from truly grasping deeper truths."
"Advent is a time of waiting, of being alert, and of being aware of what God is doing," he continued. "Only by more stillness, more time in prayer and more time listening, really listening, can we fully hear what God is telling us. So for Advent let us depend less on cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, and the net, and let us depend more on genuine listening. We need to listen more carefully to God and to one another."
* The online community of i-church, founded by the Diocese of Oxford in the United Kingdom, has a calendar that includes contributions written, created, sung and chosen by i-church members and friends, according to an explanation on the community's "gatehouse" page.
* St. Margaret Mary Parish in Naperville, Illinois offers its 2009 calendar here. Clicking on each day's door reveals artwork overlain with a short quote from the Bible.
* Although not technically an Advent calendar, the Scottish Episcopal Church's blog "Love Blooms Bright" promises "at least two posts a week, and who knows: it might end up being daily after all."
"We hope you’ll join us through this unpredictable, untamable season," the organizing contributors say.
* The Episcopal Church and the Visual Arts' online Advent exhibition offers 25 interpretations of the phrase "full of grace." The artists' works can be viewed as a self-paced PDF slideshow or an automatically running slideshow via Abode Flash Player. In addition, 25 clickable thumbnails allow viewers to find out more information about each artist. The exhibit, writes curator Moses Hoskins, "is offered to enrich any viewer's Advent experience."