What It Means To Wait

It is Sunday, the second Sunday in Advent and, though the season is upon us, I am not in a particularly festive mood.  For four days it has rained.  For four days the water-filled clouds have anchored themselves in the sky.  For four days I have stared out the back door at the shed in which the Christmas tree huddles in a corner, disassembled and naked, waiting.  Waiting for the rain to stop, waiting to be dragged across the yard, waiting to yield its wire and plastic limbs to baubles and lights.

We learn early what it means to wait.  Wait in line, wait your turn.  Most of elementary school, it seemed, involved some form of waiting.  I can still remember standardized test day and the jittery anticipation of the moments preceding the teacher’s proclamation of, “You may begin.” The Apollo mission countdowns projected in black and white images on pull-down screens, the starter’s pistol thrusting runners from their crouches, and the pause to say a blessing before every meal collectively taught me that delay is always brief and always results in something good.

Then I grew up.  Learned that waiting can end in disappointment and loss, that patience does not always yield a prize, that longsuffering sometimes results in only that – long suffering.

The irony is not lost on me, as I glare out the window at the puddles and flattened leaves, that this diatribe against waiting has erupted during the season on the Christian calendar during which we are instructed to wait.  I leave my post and walk through the living room where, on a table cluttered with photos of my family, sits the Advent wreath.

Four candles.  One for each day of the darkness and gloom that have kept me waiting.

Four candles.  One for each of the gifts of the approaching Nativity.  Hope.  Peace.  Joy.  Love.

Without much enthusiasm I light the first two candles, hope and peace.  I watch the flames sway in the darkness, barely moving, like the girl at the edge of the dance floor waiting to be asked to join in the party.  Movement in the waiting.  Light in the waiting.

I take a deep breath and, as I exhale, as I feel the frustration and tension begin to dissipate, the flames flicker.  They bend and grow smaller and almost go out.  But only for a moment.  Because hope cannot be extinguished and peace cannot be snuffed.  They will not always illuminate every corner or disperse every cloud, but they will always be available in the waiting.

It is Monday.  Though the rain has stopped, the clouds still hover.  I brave the two miles of slippery clay, bouncing in and out of ruts dug deep in mud, to get to the highway, to end the hibernation enforced by rain.  I keep thinking about the flickering candles, the vulnerable flames, the light they throw into the shadows.

The road ahead rises and curves and just as I get to the top of the hill, a round beam of white light breaks through the gray.  The brightness forces me to squint into the flickering, vulnerable sunshine, the flame that dares to pierce the darkness of waiting.  It follows me home and falls over my shoulders as I dive into the darkness of the shed and pull out the Christmas tree.

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