The Posture of Advent: How Do We Wait Well?
“We don’t do waits,” my friend said. “We live in a world that doesn’t wait and often God asks us to. ” she said. “So what does that look like? How do we wait well? What is the posture of waiting?”
That conversation was two years ago, and I’ve been thinking about it off and on ever since -because life is full of waiting! We began the season of Advent this past Sunday. Waiting is its theme. The timing is not lost on me that Sunday night my husband found a lump on Grizzly’s neck. On Monday morning, before heading into work at a job I was beginning that day, I was dropping him off at the vet, and by the time we got him home Monday night, he had a five-inch incision in his neck and I was a hot mess. I’d tried to be strong and tell myself it would all be fine, but lately I’ve watched two friends have their whole worlds unravel with great suffering, and I could’t convince myself that this would all be fine.
I’d tried to be strong, praying off and on Sunday night, but as I loaded him in the car Monday, my husband said, “You want us to lay hands on him and pray?” and that was the first time I lost it! I wept while he prayed and then I heard myself say, “I cannot do this right now. I know Grizzly won’t live forever, but not yet, not now; I’ve only had him three years.” My husband, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, has a way of not worrying about things until someone is actually shooting at him, reminds me often, No one is shooting at us. He let me cry and then said, “Let’s just see what the vet says.” So here we are WAITING to see what the vet says.
How do we wait well? What does it look like? What is the posture of waiting?
Advent has some answers.
Waiting looks like living as exiles - strangers in a land not our own. Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem for Jesus’s birth, then into exile in Egypt. She gave birth on a trip in an unfamiliar stable, and then didn’t get to return home for two years.
Living as an exile means we live attentively, ready to move, and longing for home.
Being attentive means I name what I notice. I’m learning that the initial step in the practice of Examen is to start with gratitude. Where is the wonder? Children wonder well. Adults move too fast. I need to slow down and start with nature. It’s hard to be outside and not wonder What beautiful things can I notice? What gifts can I recall being shared with me in my current circumstances? How has God worked in my day or my week already? Sometimes I make a gratitude list in my journal or just sit with God with those questions. The second step in attending is to notice my feelings, to see them as signals to get me to pause and question. What my body is doing? Sleeping patterns? Procrastination? Anxiety? Resistance? Pulling away from others? Overindulging in something? I may see fear, stress, frustration, anger, worry, hurt, pain, trauma, unforgiveness…any number of emotions or multiple ones simultaneously, but I try to name them. Out loud. Or write them down. This is the doorway. The spiritual practice of confession -naming what you notice. The energy to heal belongs to God, but until I acknowledge what I feel, the doorway is closed to the flow of grace. It’s called denial in psychological terms. Naming the feeling is like opening the front door and asking Grace to come on in.
If my friend and I are going to “wait well” as we desire, then we have to ask ourselves, “What is my body doing and saying?” To ignore it and listen only to the mind is to rationalize at best and probably end up lying to ourselves. Waking up at night? Butterflies in the stomach? Those are just two of my body’s many ways of talking to me. While I believe in God’s gift of pharmaceuticals to help us get needed sleep or get through illness, I miss a doorway into God’s presence when I fail to honor the body by acknowledging these very real signals and asking first what they tell me before medicating them. Many of us were taught to repress or ignore our feelings. Especially within the church, we were taught we could trust the truth of God’s word, even trust our minds to analyze truth, but we couldn’t trust our bodies. This denies the Incarnation. The Christ came in a body-an eating, drinking, walking, talking, sleeping body like ours. God could not have honored us more than by making himself at home in a body - Jesus’ and ours.
To live “ready to move” means free of needing certain outcomes. Whatever nesting looked like for a young Jewish mother in that part of the world, Mary did not get to do it. Nor did she get to bring Jesus home to a plethora or grandmoms, aunts, sisters and friends who could help her. They left Bethlehem and went to Egypt for two years. But then again, Mary had prayed when she learned she was pregnant, “Be it unto me according to your word.” Mary had said Yes to God before the journey to Bethlehem began. She’d been practicing a “soul that magnified the Lord and a spirit that rejoiced” long before she got on the donkey’s back. How do I become unattached from certain outcomes? I begin with questions. Why do I want this outcome? What set of expectations surrounds it? A certain school? A spouse? A job? A diagnosis? Am I seeking comfort, pleasure, success or the presence of God? What if God is in my failure? or sickness? Or solitude? Or pain?
Most of us will do anything to fill the empty space that longing creates. We’ve found hundreds of ways to fill, binge, distract and numb - anything but actually feel our longings. But what if we are meant to live with longing? Dr. Larry Crabb calls it ‘soul thirst:’ it’s part of being human this side of heaven. I need to accept that the life I can see and touch and grip on this earth will never fully be enough because it is not ultimate reality. This world is the hologram and God is the reality. I know I’ve quoted Meister Eckhart on this blog before he bears repeating: “God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.” We are continually going out for a walk…being the prodigal son. He is continually being the father, welcoming us home. This is a circular pattern we will keep on living because we are human. Our hope, as we mature, is that our ‘going our for a walk’ gets shorter. May I leave the pigpen and run home faster next time! The soul thirst is the longing to be at home with God and nothing else will fill that but his presence. The longing is for the Bread of Life, born in a manger in Bethlehem.
May we wait well this Advent - attentive, ready and longing for home.
