Friday, November 26, 2010

Patience, People!

Thanksgiving is now past and we turn our focus toward Christmas.  In between now and then, in the Church we move through a sacred time called Advent.  In the business of our holiday preparation, though, Advent can be relegated to a few moments around the Advent wreath, which in turn can become just another adornment of the holiday season. 
If we take just a moment, though, we can see Advent for a reminder to sanctify time.  The season’s message focuses on our experiences of preparation and waiting: like the time between discovering one is with child and the advent (coming) of that child at birth; the expectancy and hope that fills a high school student who waits eagerly for advent of a letter of acceptance at college or university; or even the repeated looking out the window when we hear a car park when expecting the advent of a loved one on a journey home.
In our culture of cell phones, microwaves and e-mails, patience is a virtue very much on the decline.  How good are you at waiting?  While many might give lip service to patience as being a virtue, too often people act as if those who wait patiently are misguided or lazy or uncommitted. Who wants to wait? Wouldn’t we rather have fast food, quick service, rapid turn-around and instant results? Don’t we admire the people who just get out there and get the job done - now?
We appreciate the season of Advent for raising that question for us each year and forcing us to acknowledge that we are powerless before the slow, relentless passage of time. We can neither rush the days of Advent nor delay them. They will come and go at their own reliable pace. Christmas is immovable, no matter how we would like to hurry it into existence. Just ask any child who wants to hasten the coming of the day.   At the start of the season of Advent we realize that we MUST take time to prepare and WAIT for the advent of the Savior.  Whether we succeed in undertaking the wait patiently or impatiently says something about our development of the virtue of patience.
But why work to develop the virtue of patience?
If we can learn this lesson in Advent, it is a lesson that can carry over into our faith lives well beyond the season. There may be real virtue in humbly acknowledging that some other aspects of our lives are not subject to our pushing and prodding them to fulfillment too early, either. There inevitably will be occasions when we must wait for a diagnosis, for an apology, for a resolution to a problem, for forgiveness. We can wait impatiently and anxiously. Or we can learn the lessons of Advent and wait patiently and trustingly.
How good are you at waiting? Now is a good time to practice.

No comments:

Post a Comment