Waiting

It is the first day of Advent and I am not sure if I have ever longed for Christmas in the way that I am hoping for it in this very moment. Not because I am homesick or am craving something familiar. I don’t have a long Christmas list, nor do I need a vacation. It is none of these. My wandering heart and tumultuous mind are simultaneously stilled and stirred by what approaches. Advent. A season set aside for expectant waiting and preparations for the celebration. Advent. The mere thought of the hope that it promises—the comfort in what is to come and the utter relief in the chance of a new beginning and a changed heart—makes my being ache for the Christmas arrival.

I discovered an email of my last year’s musings at this time of year; it’s a strange gift to be able to see where you’ve been and what you were thinking in that place in life. Here’s where my heart was a year ago (truth be told, I am writing this more as a vigilant reminder for myself more than anything):

The way my life is looking right now I feel pretty far removed from that stable in Bethlehem. It's hard to wrap my privileged mind around the context of Jesus' birth. But, as I grapple with the narrative and sift through the implications of it all, I find myself ever searching for a meaningful moment in my own past Christmas' that can mirror that context.

Hovering in my mind, like the ghost of Christmas past, is the memory of my last year's Christmas in India. It was then that I recognized that this charade of christmas characters that we have idealized, far removed from our own selves, is quite real in many places around the world. still, there are child brides and unwed mothers, there are pilgrims and there are outcasted shepherds, there are refugees who find no room offered in the inn, it is all real.

And in our own lives? The past couple of days I have had my eyes opened
to broken relationships in my own family, that are mirrored in my church family, and ultimately reflect the brokeness in our global family. No wonder Mary trembled. No wonder she pondered it all in her heart. She knew the world. She knew what it was like to be a 13 year old girl soon to be married by the will of her family who was suddenly with child-- a child who would be the restoration that this broken world ached for. Imagine her great desire in wanting to protect that precious child form it all. Similarly, we are constrained by our own fear in reconciliation, in change, in asking questions, in being challenged, in dismantling our idealogy of the world as we know it. The shepherds trembled too. The most powerful king in the land was shaking in his boots. a revolution lurked.

and yet. there was only a poor couple. a stable. a donkey. some lowly shepherds.

All praise be for the grace in that the nativity story is one composed of meager elements. This tiny child, destined to lead a revolution of social justice, was born to a poor, young woman in a lowly location on the fringes ofsociety. Incredible, that God would use such an earthly vehicle to deliver a being that would turn the world on its head. oh, what hope.

i think that is the christmas that i'd like to pursue

Back to Christmas present. As I mull this all over, I am surprisingly shocked to realize how broken I feel from a year of being too wrapped up in it all to even realize it was happening—a year, while neither being limited to nor necessarily defined by, including instances of a broken heart, a broken spirit, broken relationships, and what felt at times felt like a broken body. I have wandered with a bit of a nomadic spirit of the feet, heart and mind…anxious for a place to land but frightened by who I am and by who may know me. I find myself lacking the courage to just stay still and expectantly wait and in so doing, I neglect the celebration and expectations to which the Season points. So, what Christmas is it I am pursuing now? Perhaps this year has provided me with the opportunity to examine my own brokenness-- the contradictions in my own life in a context of the contradictions in the world.

So in the spirit of Advent, I will wait. I am waiting. For restoration. For peace. For a great birth that brought this All.