Waiting

 Waiting is hard. If you celebrated Christmas as a child, perhaps you remember the agonizing wait for Christmas morning. I remember having trouble going to sleep the night before and waking throughout the night wondering “is it here yet?”. When my son was little we used to have a pact about what was the earliest he could wake us up Christmas morning.

Now that we are adults our Christmas celebration is more subdued. We still honor our Christmas morning tradition, but it’s often light out by the time we get up, we make coffee, start the cinnamon rolls, and then begin the discussion about when we should wake our 20 year old son.

We made a decision a few years back, when my son had grown too old for the intense Christmas magic of early childhood, to scale back, to do less for the holidays. It was a relief to let go of many of the stressful expectations and preparations. The first year I tried doing less in the build up for Christmas I noticed that feeling of “getting ready,” of nervous anticipation was still there. I realized that the feeling came not from the ambitious deadlines I set myself, the stressful preparations of gifts and cooking and cleaning and preparing worship, but that there was a feeling waiting that was just there, even once the preparations were done. It occurred to me that maybe the waiting I felt is instinctive,. As they say in the fictional world of Game of Thrones: “Winter is coming”

I feel like this “waiting” aspect of advent resonates with the larger cultural moment we are in, waiting and waiting and, waiting for an end to the pandemic. Perhaps the advent tradition has some wisdom to offer about how to navigate this less joyful waiting we have been doing.

What is waiting anyway? Really, if you had to explain it to someone, how would you explain it? There are so many kinds of waiting, Jan Richardson listed many of them in her beautiful Blessing for Waiting. Clearly the quality of waiting for Christmas morning is quite different from, for example, waiting for test results.

Part of what makes waiting so uncomfortable is that it splits our attention. We can’t keep our attention fully in the present moment, because there is something in the future we need to pay attention to. If I’m waiting for cookies to come out of the oven, I need to pay attention to the timer or I might have burned cookies. If I’m waiting for a bus, I need to pay attention or I might miss it.

Waiting also implies that some part of what I’m waiting for is out of my hands. Once the cookies are in the oven there’s nothing I can do except wait. If we are waiting for a child to be born, if we are waiting for the return of the sun, we don’t control the timetable, So waiting is kind of a “yin” activity, a passive, receptive activity which is hard for us active busy folks.

But we do have choices we can make while we are waiting. Generally I deal with the discomfort of waiting by filling up my time with work. My husband uses the other technique, getting everything ready early and then setting everything down to wait. What’s your technique? How do you manage the waiting process?

If you are the kind of person who likes to fill waiting time with activity, you can choose to stay busy to help the time pass. Some folks prefer a more contemplative approach- if the cookies are important, you might wait in attentive stillness- you don’t want to get distracted with other tasks and miss the perfect moment to take them out. Part of the reason my husband is never late for anything is that he doesn’t fill the waiting time with distracting activity, and is always ready by the door with his shoes and coat on well before it is time to leave.

The advent tradition encourages us to use the waiting time to prepare our spirits for the coming of Christmas, to prepare our hearts for new life. Father Bob, from the Eastern Point Retreat House I often visit, sent this Advent reflection:

“What we may want to pay attention to on this Advent journey, is the interior movement of the Spirit within; that desires to bring us closer to God as we go about our “busyness.”. We may also want to pay attention to the interior movements of the Spirit that may surprise us with joy in the midst of the pain and suffering that we see all around us.” - Robert Vereecke, SJ

In the Catholic tradition, advent is a time of contemplative preparation, taking time to notice those “movements of the spirit.” Just as a baker who is carefully watching the cookies in their transformation is likely to notice when they are at precisely the right done-ness, if we take time to notice the interior movements of spirit, Advent will be a more spirit-centered season. This quiet approach to preparation is different from just “doing nothing” because of that intention, attention and awareness. As Father Bob says Advent is “the invitation to be “awake, vigilant, attentive” to God’s working in the world?”

Another way we can prepare is more active, more exterior. I know in my own life that when I am anxious, doing something physical like cooking or washing dishes can really help ground me. Preparing for Christmas by decorating and baking and connecting with friends and families will not make it come any faster, but it definitely increases the odds that there will be cookies, and lights, and a feeling of connection when it finally comes. This more embodied approach to preparation also benefits from our attention and intention. I suspect all of us have experienced a “too busy” advent season, in which the acts of preparation, the expectations of having certain things in place so overwhelm that we just end up agitated with burnt cookies or a burned out spirit. If we choose to engage in those active, external acts of preparation, we might do them with the clear intention of creating a holiday celebration more in line with our values, in line with what our hearts need this year.

But of course, part of what makes waiting hard is that there are no guarantees about what will happen. My friend found out this past Thanksgiving after her turkey had been in the oven 2 hours already that her oven was broken. The thanksgiving dinner they were waiting for turned out very different than they had anticipated.

Back in March of 2020 I imagined our lives would be constrained by Covid for just a few weeks. But we waited as the virus spread and spread. This summer I was sure we were through the other side, I celebrated this summer with hugs of relief; my friends and I were vaccinated and the Covid numbers were the lowest they had been and I wanted to celebrate the milestone. And then Delta, and now Omacron, and the heartbreaking losses we have felt. How all this will turn out no one knows. It’s so much harder to wait when you don’t know how much longer the wait will be, or even what you are waiting for.

Maybe there are better times ahead, maybe worse, probably some of each. This is called a liminal” or “interstitial” place- an in-between place like being in the waiting room at the hospital, the bus stop as the scheduled time passes and there is no bus in sight.

For Christians observing advent, the tradition focuses on the coming of the savior foretold in the books of the prophets. One of the readings in the lectionary this past week was from the book of Isiah,

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song. …

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not! …

Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe.
The burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water;
sorrow and mourning will flee. [from I Is 35]

Each day in advent, the lectionary is full of scripture reminding Christians about the promise that is fulfilled on Christmas.

This season offers a promise for all of us, Christian or not, in the Nativity story. Mary the pregnant mother waiting for new life. Telling the story of that miraculous birth reminds us that life finds a way. That even in these discouraging times, life finds a way, and new life emerges. Mary and Joseph set out to Bethlehem as the gospel of Luke says “being great with child” or the more modern translations “soon to give birth.” Advent is a gestational time, waiting for something new to be born. Even now expectant parents are getting ready to welcome new life into the world, new, miraculous, utterly unique persons, babies of untold potential.

Waiting for even the most planned for, most anticipated baby has complexity to it. Even if everything goes perfectly, at the end of the process the new parents’ life will be changed forever as they welcome a new being into the world. Even if everything goes exactly according to plan, there will be pain and hard work and sleepless nights.

And we all know, and try not to think too hard about, that it doesn’t always go perfectly, some pregnancies end in loss and sadness. But life itself continues, entering the world again and again. Even in this time of loss and grief and uncertainty, new life makes its way into the world every day.

There’s a lot we can’t control, so much that is out of our hands, but we do have choices about how we use this time. Think about it- advent takes a whole month, and depending on how fast kids unwrap the presents, the Christmas morning present ritual kids pine for can be over in 15 minutes. How can we best inhabit this in-between-time? How can we use this liminal time to prepare ourselves for whatever is coming? Whether that is quieting ourselves so we can watch those subtle inner movements of the spirit, or doing the embodied work of putting our values in action, of preparing the things that we want to have ready when the future finally arrives?

Consider that all this time we have been “waiting to go back to church” we have never stopped going to church, and in fact we have created something new we could never have imagined. Whatever the future may hold, we now have the tools to gather in a meaningful way even if we can’t be in the same space. We have new friends, and all the relationships we have strengthened during this time. We have losses too, and part of the preparation for whatever is coming is that we must grieve those losses, so that when good times come again, our hearts are ready.

What does your heart need in this time of waiting- this month of advent as the nights grow longer and longer and we wait for the promised light to return, as we wait for the Christmas miracle of birth? What does your heart need in this longer time of waiting-- waiting for Covid to pass, waiting for heaviness of grief and loss to pass, waiting for the promise of new life to be fulfilled?

Last year as I was decorating for Christmas I pulled out literally every decoration I had and put them up until our dining room looked like a shop window, and any remaining decorations I donated to families who needed a little Christmas. This year as I was decorating for Christmas, I left whole tubs of the decorations in the closet. A sprig or 2 of holly from my garden on a plane wreath felt uniquely right to honor this unique year. What feels just right to you as you prepare your home, your hearts your spirits? What old or new rituals or practices would you like to include?

My spiritual director, Janet Corso, says that Advent is “a time of deepening interiority, awaiting birth - a time of active waiting, simplicity, nesting, preparing, quiet expectation, surrendering in preparation for receiving.” Together we wait, and prepare, open to new life in all its forms. Trusting in the promise of life always giving birth to life.