Day 8: Waiting (plus a little rant about Church buildings) :)

So I spent about an hour and half driving around town today trying to find a Church sanctuary to sit in. As much as I love my church, sometimes it just drives me mental that we don't have a building.  How are we suppose to be a refuge and a light if we keep our doors locked, or worse, don't even have a building! I know Christ is not in a building, but sometimes, its nice to have a physical place. With candles, and stained glass.  Some place without technology, or laundry, or anything distracting. Some place quiet where no one bugs you, they just let you live in the silence. Where there is a physical space to breathe deep and silent cry, to be alone but not alone. To be away but to be found. A refuge.

So thank God for the Catholics, it was close, I thought i might end up at the Sikh temple, and maybe that wouldn't have been that bad cause I could have had dinner than too!  But let's not even go there...I'm gonna calm down now that I got that little rant out, and just leave some stuff implied. After all, isn't the gospel taking care of the orphan and the widow.....


Advent.

Waiting. Expecting. That awkward in-between time.

Waiting is hard. Straight up, gut wrenching hard. Especially in the west where we want everything right now!  Waiting is an endangered species out here.  We do all sorts of things to entertain ourselves or distract ourselves while we wait.  We get impatient and grumpy when a line doesn't move as fast as we want, and heaven forbid, if someone were to cut in line!

But in someways all of our life is one big advent.  One big waiting, until Christ comes again. So I'm thinking we should get used to it. Stop distracting ourselves and embrace it.  Learn how to be good waiters. Learn to live in the silence, the darkness, the unknown. Learn to invite the mystery and not fear it.

We don't like to wait, because it implies that we're not in control. And well, we like to be in control.  We like to have it all figured out, or at least walk around like we do. So how about we learn to be good waiters, you and me. Why don't we just embrace this season of advent and not run from the silence, from the unknown, from the darkness. How about this time, we open our hands and invite the mystery invite the wonder. Not rush it, or understand it, just sit with it. Sit in it. Rest.