Advent Waiting Is Peace Making

some thoughts at the beginning of Advent

Photo by alexandru vicol on Unsplash

“The Waiting Place,” Dr. Seuss tells us, is “a most useless place.”

It’s a place “for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or—” You get the idea. It’s a place, he insists to his reader, that’s not for you. (Not for me?) You will escape. (I will?) How else will you get to, oh, the places you’ll go?

As much as I love reading Oh, the Places You’ll Go! I rarely reach for it when I’m seeking spiritual insights. And yet, as I begin my own Advent prayer—this spiritual season of waiting—I hear those sing-song verses over and over in my head as some sort of warning.

Not for you. Useless place. Escape.

Dr. Seuss captures what many of us feel about waiting: It’s a real pain. We don’t want to be stuck waiting for anything: the bus, a promotion, the next customer service representative, the fulfillment of our destinies. In fact, rather than get stuck waiting, we want to do.

Hurry along fate. Get caught trying. At least be seen as prepared.

After all, if we’re caught flat-footed, we may miss that promotion. Miss the callback. Miss our chance. Or even find ourselves in harm’s way.

Better to act than to wait and be acted upon.

And then we come to Advent, this season of waiting. And we sigh. There’s too much to do! There’s too much I need! There’s too much expected of me!

And Advent simply becomes a ticking clock, a series of cardboard doors to open until Christmas. There, we insist, we waited. And now it’s Christmas. And Jesus is here. And New Year’s Eve. And, oh shit, a new year and new responsibilities on top of the old and who can say if I’ve done enough to be ready and did I pay that bill or enter that contest or replace that old water heater or—

What happens to our spiritual selves when we spiral? When we focus always on being prepared rather than being present? On being action-oriented rather than being aware and available?

We too easily forget that God is already present here, in this moment. That the Spirit is already at work, doing something new. That we ourselves are pregnant with possibility—and that we aren’t waiting for the seed to be planted but rather for it to bloom.

It’s all here, now, waiting. We don’t need to look elsewhere for that fulfillment. We can look within ourselves—and encourage others to do the same. Advent waiting can dispel our fears of not being enough, having enough, doing enough.

Because when our attention is always cast somewhere else, when we give into the temptation to “escape” the “Waiting Place” and give our fear free reign to guide our gaze, we develop a dangerous disposition.

“Fearful people have a hard time waiting,” the late Dutch priest Henri Nouwen writes, “because when we are afraid, we want to get away from where we are. But if we cannot flee, we may fight instead. Many of our destructive acts come from the fear that something harmful will be done to us. And if we take a broader perspective—that not only individuals but whole communities and nations might be afraid of being harmed—we can understand how hard it is to wait and how tempting it is to act. …People who live in a world of fear are more likely to make aggressive, hostile, destructive responses than people who are not so frightened. The more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes.” (p 28, Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas)

It's not hard to look out at our world and find examples of people who are afraid—and even rightly so—of waiting.

But this Advent, perhaps we might look at ourselves, at those kneejerk reactions we have to people and events taking place around us. Is our impulse to take a breath, to pause, to wait and allow the moment to unfold? Or do we respond hastily, lashing out in anger, irritation, hatred?

Because in these small moments, the seeds of violence are nurtured. Advent waiting gives us an antidote, a taste of peace, the moment we need to see that we are, in fact, enough. We don’t need to flee or fight.

It’s already right here. Waiting.

And another thing:

• Did you like the new Disney movie, Wish? My family loved it—the soundtrack has been playing nonstop in a car for a month (also, haunting my dreams). But the movie is so much more than a tribute to the100th anniversary of Disney storytelling. I wrote about some of the spiritual themes I think are most important over at NCR. Give it a read.

• Need a little more of an Advent boost to kickstart the season? Check out this week’s “Now Discern This.”