Advent. A time of waiting for what is coming. Autumn, waiting for winter, waiting for the coming of spring, waiting for the coming of summer, waiting for the coming of autumn. “To everything there is a season,” we are told, if we wait for it to come and then, often, to pass.
What are we waiting for? The answer to the question seems quite obvious for most Americans. We are waiting for this election cycle to be formally over. We are waiting to see what the next four years will bring. We are waiting for stability, for peace, for kindness, for Light. The question seems obvious for the rest of the world. We are waiting for vaccinations, for the end of the pandemic, for what that “end” will look like and what it will ask of us and who will say “yes” to what is required. Waiting can be tiring. We can only tread water for so long. Our hope, I believe, is to rediscover the practice of waiting while staying in the moment, paying attention to that moment, whatever it is.
In this time of watching the world in which I grew up, reared children, practiced a vocation seem to crumble or at least suffer some serious fissures, I have wondered where God—that ultimate Being that is part of us yet is much vaster than us–is. Slowly during these months of pandemic, that answer came to me: “What is, is where God is.” What our current reality is (lockdown, illness, frustration, anger, fear, displacement, separation) is where God is. And if we desire to participate in the creative and re-creative work of God, we join God where God is. IS. Here. Now. In the waiting, or rather, in how we wait.
How are you preparing to wait for the Light and the closure of the year 2020? How am I? In our waiting, how will we assist the flame that is calling to be rekindled? What commitment will we make to being Light-followers? These are the questions I am taking into my heart this Advent, with honesty, with compassion, and with the presence of the Spirit of God. You are invited to join me in pondering them, or sharing your own questions.
Spirit Reflections 