Are you a good wait-er?
So, as I made my third trip in the day down Watson road (toward Catholic Supply this time), it became very obvious to me. “I am not a good wait-er, especially in my car.” As I chafed at every red light, (I think I caught all of them but ONE); as I was urging people to at least drive a bit faster than 10 MPH UNDER THE LIMIT; as the clock ticked the wasted seconds away in my head, I became very aware of the RESTLESSNESS that needed to GET THERE and GET THERE NOW. The sad part of that, was that I really had nothing else that I had to do, that was waiting for me when I got back other than the usual desk and email and snail mail work. And yet, there I was, fuming to pick up the just arrived advent candles as quickly as I could. And in a moment of clarity, I realized my driving was a microcosm of my whole life. I am always in a hurry to get to the next thing without ever entering this one.
A woman named Ann Voskamp wrote a wonderful little book called A Thousand Gifts. In it, she tells a story of sitting in a cemetery, reading a book one day, and she notices, on the far side of the cemetery, two people awaiting the arrival of the hearse. No one else. No preacher, no minister. Just two ladies. And when the hearse comes and the funeral director and the grave digger slide the coffin out, a question once asked of a pastor haunts through the rows of headstones to her heart:
“What is your biggest regret in life?” The response surprised her.
“Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing…. Through all that haste, I thought I was making up time. I turns out, I was throwing it away.”
He concludes simply. “Hurry always empties the soul.” Hurry always empties the soul. The wrestling to ‘get it done’ can so trap us so that we never arrive, never show up at wherever we are.
Maybe you know that. All the preparations for Christmas, the gatherings, the gift giving, the house decorating and cookie baking and whatever wonderful and great customs that you have to mark this season – can be wonderful, or they can leave us driving our car so hurriedly that we never ‘arrive’ at Christmas at all.
Jesus says it this way: Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life… And he offers the antidote to this – that watchfulness tinged with expectancy, that not only waits, but even more so HOPES for and trusts in that in-breaking of God. This season, with its four candles, invite us to slow down. This world is passing away. Our lives are short, and we have much less time than we think. And the surest way to miss our lives is to HURRY. It is “eternal life” that God is preparing us for. And that cannot be rushed. It cannot be hurried.
Ann continues: “I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because HERE-TIME asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive…”
I wonder if the HERE-TIME called ADVENT invites us to do the same? To take the foot of the gas of our cars, the carousing and anxieties of our lives, so that we can hear the voice that speaks to us – to do justice, to work for peace, to reconcile all that is broken in our corners of the world so that we can reconcile ALL the corners of the world.
So, turn off the radio in your car. Wake up five minutes earlier and begin the day in silence. Stop the car ½ a block away from work/home and say a decade of the rosary, so you are ready for whatever faces you when you walk through those doors. Instead of thinking bad thoughts about that driver who is going 10 mph under the limit, thank him for allowing you more time away from your desk/office/home and more minutes to connect with God.
Be vigilant at all times, Jesus tells us. Starting now!