I am hoping for more
this advent season.
More time to reflect,
more space to open up
and more resolve to
see the holiness in the waiting
Advent is too often
wished away, a quickstep up to the main event
But there is so much
more on offer.
This year impatience
has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
5 months pregnant and
to say I am extremely keen to meet this little girl would be a drastic
understatement.
She has started to
make her presence known with movements and karate chops. Every wiggle fills me
with an unprecedented joy.
Perhaps more than ever
I am appreciating the desire to skip to the end when I get to hold the baby in
my arms, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine that Mary
might have felt the same.
But pregnancy in itself is a precious time of waiting and preparation, so to wish it away means I am in danger of completely missing the point.
Because this time is
limited, never again will I have this precious child so close to me that it’s
hard to tell which heartbeat is mine and which is hers.
So it is with advent,
often wished fast away or forgotten in all the other demands.
I was recently blown
away by Frederick Buechner’s description of advent;
‘In the silence of a
midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint
that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself.
You hold your breath
to listen…for a second you catch a whiff of a fragrance that reminds you of a
place you have never been and a time you have no words for...
The extraordinary thing that is about to
happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.
Advent is the name of that moment.’
Frederick Buechner ‘Goodness and Light advent
reflection’
So lets pause together
for a while and listen to the still small voice which echoes across the years,
taking all of our pettiness and worries into his stride as the old way is made
new once again.
Pictures from a snowy Scottish adventure this
weekend, celebrating one of my most enduring and joyful friendships with this
wonderful woman.
