Waiting For America

As I write this it is 8:34am on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5, 2024. I needed to write something today that would help me tomorrow morning, and maybe help you too. At this point I’ve done all I can in support of the candidates I hope to elect, and of the issues I care deeply about. I’ve voted. I’ve encouraged others— friends, family, neighbors, and strangers—to vote. I’ve donated money and shared words and resources that have helped me along the way. I’ve prayed fiercely, not because I believe that God is in control of the outcome of this election, but because I believe that we are.

And now, we wait.

Waiting is active, not passive. It is a choice to stay in the here and now. To be present to what is true, even as what is true in this moment may be different from what is true just moments from now, until eventually the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth prevails.

Waiting is hard work. It’s not doing nothing. It’s doing everything to stay right here rather than jumping to what might be out there.

Waiting is trusting that the outcome will make itself known, and when it does that we will have our part to play.

Waiting is threshold work. It is the space between what has been and what will be, and is an integral part of bringing anything new into being. Such waiting is found in the rhythm of childbirth, the changing of the seasons, the cycles of the harvest, and the stillness before the sun rises to usher in a new day.

And, it is found in the continued creation of America, this fierce and fragile and fraught country that we love.

May we wait together in hope, in grace, in peace, and in love.

And when the waiting is over, may we the people turn toward one another and get to work.

Test Results

It’s been a long two weeks.

On a Tuesday afternoon my husband had a biopsy. His PSA numbers had risen to the point of raising some concern, and it was time to find out what was going on. His test results, we assumed, would be available by the end of the week.

It was an inaccurate assumption.

Winter weather moved in and life, including communication from the doctor’s office, came to a screeching halt for an additional week. Which gave us more than enough time to wonder just what those test results would have to say. Was it prostate cancer? If so, how aggressive? Would treatment be necessary? If so, what kind? What side effects? The longer we had to wait, the more we wanted to know the results. Until you have the information, it all swirls around in your head. Especially in the wee hours of the morning.

Today, his results came in, and there is no cancer.

Life has a way of reminding us that our days are both precious and precarious.

The precious is found in the here and nowness of our lives.

The precarious on the other side of a door that is not yet open.

No need to push on that door. It will open when the time comes, and not before.

Ready For Christmas?

In every checkout line, on every phone call, in every meeting, and everywhere in between, there seems to be one question on everybody’s mind.

Are you ready for Christmas?

What does that even mean?

Are you ready for Christmas?

The answer usually involves deep breaths and a palpable sense of being behind on whatever it is we think it means to be ready for a holiday we’ve known about for the last 364 days, but that sneaks up on us anyway.

Are you ready for Christmas?

In my faith tradition, to be ready for Christmas is about watching and waiting. It is about entering into a time of darkness as we wait for the light to appear. It is about Love arriving in our midst in the most unlikely and humble of circumstances.

Are you ready for Christmas?

Christmas isn’t about doing things to be ready. It is about readying our hearts for what is to come.

A Season of Waiting

“No man reaches where the moon touches a woman.
Even the moon leaves her when she opens 
Deeper into the ripple in her womb
That encircles dark, to become flesh and bone.

Someone is coming ashore inside her,
A face deciphers itself from water,
And she curves around the gathering wave,
Opening to offer the life it craves.

In a corner stall of pilgrim strangers,
She falls and heaves, holding a tide of tears.
A red wire of pain feeds through every vein,
Until night unweaves and the child reaches dawn.

Outside each other now, she sees him first,
Flesh of her flesh, her dreamt son safe on earth.”

The Nativity by John O’Donahue

Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent, a time which in my tradition is a season of waiting, expectancy, and anticipation. In our church, on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, we will light a candle to symbolize one of the themes specific to Advent:

Hope.

Peace.

Joy.

Love.

Every year before the first Sunday in Advent a nativity display appears in front of the Glenwood General Store in our little rural town. This year, however, the display moved a few feet west of the store, landing the holy family in front of the Burger Shed. A gas station in days gone by, which one can imagine in ancient times might have been about the size of a small stable in which to take shelter. But not all the holy family is visible. The mother and father, on either side of a small empty manger, await the arrival of a new life on the way. These are their days of waiting, expectancy, and anticipation, as they are ours.

Come Christmas morning, anyone driving by the Burger Shed will find the babe in the manger, a symbol of hope, peace, joy, and love. No matter our beliefs, religious or not, each of those is a fundamental longing of the human heart, And as the days grow shorter, and the darkness arrives earlier, it seems a season primed for us to eagerly wait for hope, peace, joy, and love to rise up. But let’s not just to wait for them, let’s watch for them.

Let’s claim them wherever we find them.

Let’s proclaim them whenever we see them.

Let’s call them forth.

Let’s carry them forward.

Let’s offer them up.

Let’s embody them.

Let’s embrace them.

Let’s give birth to them.