Wait: An Advent Blog

Friday, December 1: Wait

My word for 2017 was “wait.” For the last two years I have been consciously opening myself to a new word for the year during the month of December. I resisted and resisted, but the word “wait” would not go away.

I don’t like waiting.

I’ve been called all my life to silence, to the practice of being present, to letting the words come, shape and reshape themselves as I nurture and hold them. But, I always feel torn between being and doing. The world has so much need, and I am here for such a short time. I have always wanted to DO something that would leave a lasting legacy, that would contribute to positive change in the world.
Advent is the season of waiting, so it seems apt that I begin the Advent season with a promise to write each day, slowly weaving my way through what I have learned about waiting this year. I hope, in the process, to also find my 2018 word as well.

We are a cyclical people, a people tethered to our Home through seasons and repetition. Although we celebrate the Annunciation on March 25, the day the Angel Gabriel showed up with the good news could be considered the start of the Christmas season. Imagine what it would be like if the Christmas season actually began on March 25—if each year we put away the Christmas decorations only from January 7 to March 25, and began the vigil of waiting then. What if we lived for nine months in the fear and hope in which Mary and Joseph much have lived, wondering what would become of them, their baby?

Nine months is a long time to wait. In my own small life, so much has happened in the last nine months—more changes, many unexpected, than most nine month periods in my life, actually. I almost envy the idea that one might be able to focus on a single gift, a single event, for nine entire months.

But waiting, I have learned this last long year, is not about waiting for a single event to unfold. It is not about desiring something we hope will come as soon as possible.


Waiting is a way of life. Waiting is about sitting with the fullness that we have, every moment. Waiting is about knowing that we will be ready for what comes next, whatever it is.

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