Advent

Outside my office window the rain beads on the bare red branches of the stripped black walnut. I suppose this is how my soul should be, this time of advent--still, waiting. But it is not. My soul feels more like a decked-out tinsel tree, laden with blinking colored lights, at times giddy and at time irritated by the tickling of fake snowflakes.

It is December 11th. Just around the corner are the girls' birthdays, our anniversary, Christmas, and a house full of family. There is so much to look forward to, and my mind feels fragmented and busy.

Advent is all about waiting, for preparing ourselves for the baby who changed the world and who changes us daily. Waiting for babies at advent is my specialty, and an experience that brings me closer to understanding Mary's waiting. As our pregnant pastor reflected last Sunday, and as I have often thought, being pregnant is a perfect metaphor for the advent season. At those times of waiting for Merry and Elspeth, I felt filled with life, life that spoke to me in secret ways as I went about daily tasks. I sat quietly as others talked, and the baby would rise to meet my hands. But that life was cloaked in secrets. I could not rush the opening of my gift; I had to wait, sometimes in great discomfort, sometimes overwhelmed by the enchantment of my baby's dancing. This baby, separate from me but inside of me, this new gift for the world and for myself, would be born through the paradox of pain and hope. All I had to do was wait.

But waiting is not very easy. For me, waiting makes me want to fill my life with busyness before an event arrives. I want to be so busy that I do not have time to be impatient. I want to occupy myself with lesser joys so that I do not have a moment to feel sorry that the greater joy is not yet upon me. But that destroys the magic of waiting, the silence that should enfold us, the solitude where we prepare ourselves for Coming.

This solitude is hard to find these days. As I write, Elspeth is up AGAIN from her nap and she scoots around the floor with the baby. I am just waiting for Merry's wail, where she informs me that Elspeth is UP and she is IN BED. I envy the tree outside my window. There are no squirrels or birds or two-year olds hanging on its branches.

But advent is also about seasons, and about accepting, with joy, the season that you and I have been given. Is my life crazzzzzzzy? Then I accept it with joy (this said sometimes through clenched teeth). Some day my life will be different, and I will struggle to accept that change with joy as well. I know myself all too well--always jumping to the next stage in my mind, assuring myself that tomorrow will be more exciting, more peaceful, more something or other.

Little baby, little child, I wait for you. Help me to wait well.