Advent Reflections

Waiting.

We are all waiting, anticipating.

You and I, each one of us is

Waiting.

For a rending,

a breaking,

For the tearing of a crack at the edge

of our consciousness,

that opens to the slowly growing light.

Waiting.

 For that silent, uncreated Word

to speak Itself 

into voiceless silences,

gently and quietly

like mountain waterfalls,

like a symphony orchestra.

Waiting.

For the first ripple upon our stagnant waters

the first breath of wind upon our shores 

disturbing

the mosquitoes and the gnats 

a little,

an intimation of the Spirit's coming,

the rustle of dead leaves

that hung too long 

upon our branches.

Waiting.

For the Other. For perfect Being.

For the great eternal Something

to enter and to fill

the awful wastelands of our nothingness.

We are all waiting

as if in labor

broken,

bleeding,

crying out,

anguished expectancy,

the pain of a hope 

not yet fulfilled...

the convulsions and the clutching of a pillow.

And the others:

in the aptly named waiting room

white knuckled, breath held,

pacing the plain white floor

can only pray

and wait.

Is this also waiting?

This restlessness,

this nervous blinking, peering side to side,

thumbing through the morning papers,

one too many cups of coffee,

fumbling in one's pockets for a lighter,

and a cigarette

one does not have.

Is this also waiting?

The wastrel in the gutter

clutching at his gin

the narrowness, the closing in,

is he also waiting

in his small brown

paper bag?

The addict,

tired of waiting

flick his wrist to find a vein

worn out, afraid,

afraid of all this silence,

afraid of all these voices,

These too, are waiting.

A barren waiting,

devoid of hope.

Afraid You will not break open,

Afraid You will not speak,

not breathe, not fill.

Terrified You might....

And so the frantic

treading of water,

pushing dead branches 

over the open well,

skating very rapidly

on extremely thin ice,

busily nailing down the shutters

of a barren house.

All of these are waiting, too.

And there is expectancy,

another kind of waiting

one not barren

but filled with hope.

And there is another 

kind of silence

not the silence of death or lassitude

but the silence of a momentous

expectancy.

And another void, 

another place of emptiness

undespairing, full of potentiality

Only in this place of nothingness

where we are unmade and then

created,

only in this silence 

can we begin to strain our ears to hear

the first sounds

of the Coming.

Advent and the Parousia.

The First and Second Coming,

and in between a million lesser Comings

to you and me, and to all of those who 

wait.

Somewhere,

the desperate dropping of a needle,

the kicking of a bottle to the curb,

the sudden realization that one has no lighter,

the pouring of the coffee down the drain.

A sudden  silence strikes the waiting ear,

the cries and the contractions cease

more suddenly

than they first came.

And those in eager stillness waiting,

standing just without the door,

leaning forward,

strain their ears to catch

the first small glimmerings 

of sound.

For unto us a Child is born.

-- Isaac Fox

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