Advent is a time of waiting. I like that idea, but often have a hard time with it. I can be the most impatient person. I tend to let my immediate reaction be the one that I run with and then if I leave a mess in my wake I do my damnest to fix it right away, no waiting, no letting God into those moments. I am most impatient with pain I think. I try to make others pain go away, often at the expense of my own peace. Or I try to push my pain, anger, sadness, hatred....all of those "bad" feelings out as soon as I get them because I have been taught that a good friend, sister, lover, human does not harbor those feelings. Don't get me wrong, I do agree that destructive emotions can be just that, destructive, and they can be transformative. So often we are told to push away these negative feelings, but I am coming to believe that if we don't really let what we feel effect us at that moment, for as long as we need that moment to be, then we are losing something. We are losing that connection with ourselves that is telling us to be angry, to be hurt, even to hate (if only until we can forgive). Speaking for myself, I have become so frightened of letting myself feel those negative feelings that I have continued to put myself in a place that I don't actually want to be. Waiting is not about always feeling secure, happy and content. I can only imagine what Mary and Joe were going through, excitement, joy, love, of course, but no doubt there was also fear of the unknown, physical pain of traveling, even some anger of being in this situation, seemingly without help. We like to think that the manger was a peaceful, beautiful, warm, calm place...but come on, they were on hay, with animals all around, I am sure it was loud, maybe smelt like shit, Mary was was in pain, Joseph scared, who knows if there was someone helping. Not really the way you want to bring a child into the world...and yet in the midst of all of this, leaving home, traveling far with no family, waiting for this baby inside to be born, they did the only thing they could. They kept going. They trusted in Love, God and took one step after the other. And hell, they did something right, 2000 odd years later we celebrate that journey, that birth, life.
I always thought waiting meant not doing anything, but that is not the case. When I wait in a lobby I usually have a book, when I wait for laundry I am usually cleaning something else, when I wait to go home for Christmas I still have to go to work. Waiting does not mean to stop. During these last days of advent I challenge myself, and anyone out there to steep in the waiting, let it soak into you, all of it: the excitement, uncertainty, pain, fear, anger, joy... Let life effect you the way it will, don't push away what comes up, but use it to wait in joyful anticipation...we do not just wait for the birth of Christ at Christmas, but for a renewed understanding of ourselves. If you have the belief that God is Love and Love is what connects us to each other and to our own self, then the celebration of this birth is the celebration of Ultimate Love coming into the world, transformative love that allows us to see each other for who we really are. This love is already in the world, we possess it, the joy of Christmas is that we get to remind ourselves of it and celebrate it with the people we love most in the world. I suppose that is most certainly worth the wait.
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