Embrace the Seasons of Waiting

• Tree Lighting tonight at 5pm with Carols and Cocoa
• First Thursday lunch noon at Herricks is this week
• Death Cafe is December 13th at 4pm
• Christmas Eve Services are at 7pm
• Advent at Home with Owen and Charlotte begins this week
• Enjoy the Recorded Reflection HERE

Whooof!!  How many of you forgot to breathe this past week?  This is your moment to just breathe.  Sunday morning.  It’s the first Sunday of Advent. Advent brings us to a season of breathing.  A time to pause before the beginning of something new.  A time of internal focus and renewal before the outward energy of birth, rebirth, and new beginnings.  

Yesterday, one of our young visitors to the Fair looked into the sanctuary and said: “Look, it’s Jesus’s House!”  He was looking at the stable we have set up for the season.  Then he went in to look closer and (a little confused) said, “No one’s here!”  That pretty much sums up our Reflection for this week.  We’re preparing and prepared…but no one’s here yet.  We’re waiting. 

I have a soul sister, Clara, who encourages us (and herself) to embrace life’s seasons of waiting.  She reminds us that it is usually only after the season of waiting that we realize what a gift it was.  It’s usually only after we’ve rushed through to get to the other side, to the good stuff, to the light, and out of the uncomfortable (even painful) period of waiting that we realize how precious it really was.  

Clara is quite familiar with waiting and is currently in a season of waiting (and putting her trust in the hands of Grace). She is between jobs in a place that she is highly qualified professionally, but is disqualified because she is “too old” to be in the work force.  Who’s bristling at that?  She is not bristling.  She is simply…waiting and trusting.  Embracing the seasons of waiting.  Full of hope, instead of bristling.  

We do not like to wait.  It often makes us “bristle”. Usually seasons of waiting are scary.  There are the big ones.  We’ve quit one job and have not yet begun (or found—eek) a new one.  We’re not sure we’re going to like the new one.  We’ve sold one home and have not quite settled on a new home or are even sure we’re going to get that new home.  We’ve taken the exam and are waiting for the results.  We’ve studied for the test and we’re waiting for the exam.  Vacation is coming, but not quite here.  And let’s face it, everything will be better when we’re finally retired.  

Christmas is coming…but we have to trudge through Advent to get there.  To get to the excitement of gifts.  To the birth of the newborn baby Jesus.  And for many of us…to get it over with.  Christmas is exhausting.  

We don’t like to wait.  We dislike waiting so much, we’re often wishing our lives away.  Think of your own “can’t waits”.  How many are they?  How BIG are they?  How far away is the “it’ll be better when”?  

We also have our very big seasons of waiting.  The really scary ones. Not feeling well and wondering.  Having tests and waiting and worrying about what might come and what it might mean.  We don’t like to wait.  Especially when it’s the hardest and we’re the most vulnerable.  It feels like we, to our very bones, are also stripped bare to the elements of “what if?”  Sometimes, we want answers…even if we don’t like the answers.  A not so good answer feels better than no answer at all.  This is how much we don’t like periods of waiting. 

This is the really uncomfortable nature of the seasons of waiting.  If you are also in one of these seasons, we love and pray for and with you.  If you are not also in one of these seasons, we love you and ask for your prayers and love for those who are.  PAUSE.  

An herbalist I love, Susan Weed, has a list of what to do in these (medical) times of waiting (which pretty much apply to any season of waiting).  There were six (maybe seven) stages.  But what I loved most was that step one was…zero.  Wait.  Just wait.  Don’t rush into the next phases, even if you are being pushed to rush.  Wait.  Breathe.  When we are rushed and unclear, we often can’t make the best decisions and we often give away our agency to others (doctors, family, well-meaning friends…) in our rush to “get through” as fast as possible.  

In my Clara’s words: embrace the season of waiting.  I would add: be embraced in the season of waiting.  Emmanuel is God With Us.  We are not alone, even in the waiting.  We are not alone, even in the alone times. Let yourself be held in the seasons of waiting.  They are precious times, even if we are uncomfortable with the unknown that is…waiting.  Within the waiting is the opportunity and space for the light of hope to be kindled in our own hearts.  

The literal season is uncomfortable, vulnerable, and scary.  Many of us struggle with seasonal SAD or seasonal ordinary glooms. It’s dark. It’s cold. The trees are barren.  It’s raw.  It’s windy and rough.  Everything is pared down to essentials and turned inward toward conservation and…waiting. Nature itself is at a standstill.  

I invite you to take a walk this week and watch the season of waiting in nature.  The tree (probably) doesn’t worry that it won’t come back to fullness in the spring.  The berries on the bushes (probably) don’t fuss and worry about who’s eating them.  The birds don’t fight against the season.  Go outside. Be cold. Be raw.  Be uncomfortable.  

And also be embraced by comfort.  This is the time we are most likely to gather together to find warmth in the hearth fires of home, with one another, and in sacred space.  The warmth in the hollow of God’s hand. In dark, light is a bit brighter. In cold, the flame is a bit warmer. In community and togetherness is where the gently kindled flame of hope is nurtured and grows.  

It is said that the time before the dawn is the time of God.  PAUSE.  That that space before the light begins to peek over the horizon is the most magical time of prayer.  The beginning before the beginning. PAUSE. God feels deeply present in that space.  Seasonally, we’re in that space.  That space before the dawn of the solstice.  Advent is that space as we await the birth of the baby Jesus. 

And lightning up the darkness of advent is Hope.  The first light is Hope.  Hope is the thing that keeps us through all trials and all hurts.  Hope is what blossoms in the darkness.  Hope is what keeps despair at bay.  Hope is what thrives in the darkness.  And hope is what we are called to kindle in one another.  

Hope is what keeps us safe in the times of waiting.  Waiting for Christmas, waiting for the darkness to lift, waiting for the test, waiting for things to get better, waiting for change. 

Our faith has taught us, and continues to teach us, to have hope even in the darkness of times.  Our faith teaches us that the light is always with us and the light will always return.  Even in the seasons of waiting, because in this time is the Mystery that God is both already here and also not yet here.  Perhaps it is that Mystery that enlivens our spirit of Hope for what we cannot always see or feel or touch, but what we always know is Present. Perhaps that is what Advent offers us as a still, small gift…a gift we simply have to reach out with deep trust and embrace.