Waiting

It’s Advent season so it feels appropriate to talk about waiting. I find myself waiting a lot these days… for the sun to break through the fog in the morning, for the electricity to bring light back to our apartment, for hot water. I wait in traffic jams and for public buses that aren’t already filled with people. I wait for my colleagues who are constantly late for meetings (or maybe I’m early?). I wait for my morning newspaper which never seems to arrive on time. In my weaker moments, I’m waiting for this service term to end so I can get back to my real life. I’ve never been particularly good at waiting. It’s not that I mind sitting around…I just prefer to do it on my own terms.

In the larger scheme of how the world works, I also find myself waiting… for us to figure out how to live without killing each other, for the Church to overcome its pettiness and start exhibiting alternative ways of being. I’m waiting for food prices to decrease so mothers don’t have to decide which child eats and which child dies. How long will we have to wait until we have an economic system that doesn’t depend on exploitation? Until we stop the AIDS epidemic and find a cure for cancer? I’m waiting for the financial crisis to end, along with the Bush presidency.

On a more personal level, I’m waiting for my own redemption, in ways that are too numerable to name here. When will I finally get past the fear and lack of vision that so often paralyzes me and start relying on the creativity of the Spirit? When will I stop using stereotypes and prejudices to define the people I encounter and start seeing them through the eyes of love and compassion? When will I be willing to put aside the individualism that tempts me and embrace a more communal way of living? Definitely not today and probably not tomorrow…so I wait.

Advent forces us to wait. And it’s not a waiting that means we can sit back and relax. It’s a disciplined waiting that requires reflection, examination, tension. As with so many things, the waiting I experience here in Nepal, the more indefinite waiting for the redemption of myself and the world…there’s a temptation to skip the gestation period and jump immediately to the birth. We don’t like the preparation that Advent requires, the long hours sitting in the dark waiting for the sun to rise. I don’t like the moments when I’m standing naked in the bathroom (don’t picture it), waiting for the water to reach a temperature that is bearable. I feel vulnerable and cold as I’m faced with my own inadequacy- there is nothing that I can do to make the hot water come faster. And there’s nothing to distract me from the waiting. Buddhism teaches us to live in the moment, to constantly be aware of the present. This sitting, reflecting, anticipating asks for a discipline that many of us would rather not nurture. We know our Savior is coming so why not go ahead and get on with it? We’re tired of the hard work of being here, being now.

I’m waiting with all of these thoughts this Advent. I’m reminded that although this Advent season will end overnight when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, my redemption, the redemption of our communities, systems and structures, the beating of swords into ploughshares, is a much longer process. It’s a process that requires all of the disciplines that come with waiting- patience, awareness, endurance, reflection. And so this year, perhaps more so than in the past, I’m trying to live in the present that is Advent, to breathe this air, to feel this darkness…knowing that one day the sun will shine.