The Advent Wait...

It isn't any easier to wait in a Wisconsin winter than it is anywhere else... not, at least, if you are waiting upon something of some significant importance to you... Perhaps, if we had a fireplace or a wood stove, I could imagine allowing myself the gift of feeling the heat while gazing into the flames and then, waiting, might be a thing of relative ease... as it is, with only electric heating (like in our house), the Wisconsin winter is an exercise in the brutality of endurance that issues a daily challenge to the idea of a spiritual waiting...

Celtic Advent has always been a full forty days of sacred intention (matching the forty days of Lent), as I read in Celtic Daily Prayer / The Journey Begins: so right on the dot, I re-arranged our altar to become a magical-mystical-barnyard-extravaganza so as to wait in preparation... Still, the hand that opens the blinds daily reveals the snow-shrouded evergreen tree in the yard, and opening the door for an early walk with the dogs, has my Central California face wincing in a frigid purgatory... waiting... As it happens, Celtic is, above all else, a working assumption that (as Leonard Cohen wrote) God is Alive, Magic is Afoot... So perhaps, waiting is the work of doubters who will wait and see...

​But, waiting for what? As I have become a significant "gatherer of time", this question illuminates the falling leaves / the falling snow / the gathering days... Waiting is the one essential work that I do: I wait for Michelle to call me on her lunch break; I wait to walk the dogs again; I wait upon the possibility of an "arriving poem"; I wait upon the insights of prayer and meditation; I wait upon spring to work in the garden; I wait upon Michelle and our three beautifuls to come home; and of course, there is more that I wait for... But again, waiting for what?

I pause to gather in the image of a stable or a cave: I gather an image of brutally poor people confronting the night and their fears: I gather a further image of a very dark-skinned young woman, pregnant, writhing in pain -- right there -- while lying on the ground: I gather the likely grouping of shepherd or street women and girls fetching water and this and that as they try to be helpful: I gather a broken lot of wisdom-fools and just plain fools who always seem to show up for entertainment (and leave before clean-up): I gather also a few men who seem to understand that they are the extras in the unfolding drama... but somehow, all of us are just waiting...

I catch my mind wandering again to spring and the garden: it seems to me, knee deep in snow and this Celtic Advent, that that which we are so assiduously waiting for is precisely that which is already here! I mean, seriously, is our waiting only a pretense to avoid the obviousness of what we are supposed to be doing? Can there possibly be anything clearer than "seek justice, love goodness, and walk humbly with your Beloved"? (Micah) And if that isn't sufficiently clear, we could add the insights of Jesus (Yeshua the Poet): "The poor in spirit are in luck: the kingdom of the skies is theirs. The gentle... those hungering and thirsting for justice... the merciful... the peacemakers... they will be called God's sons and daughters"... (Matthew -- Andy Gaus translation)

​How can we wait when the words are crazy-urgent? "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was wandering and you took me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in jail and you came to see me... however much you did it for any of the least important of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me." (Matthew -- Andy Gaus translation) Waiting is the pleasant lifestyle of the privileged who lust for power and profit: while Advent, Celtic or otherwise, is the rEvolution of this cannot wait! 

​This cannot wait is the anguished cry of Mary -- still writhing in pain on the birthing-floor -- waiting for us to give birth to Her Son through the example of our lives: She gave birth to Jesus once: now it is our turn, many, many times over until justice flowers like the roses in our summer gardens: we must resist and overcome racism, sexism, greed-ism, nationalism, the idolatry of ecocide, and all the other sins of nations and multi-national corporations...

And yes, you do have option of writing me off as a crazy old man, but here's the kick-ass line from Jesus: "When the son of humanity comes... all the nations will be assembled before him..."  (Matthew -- Andy Gaus translation) And there follows all of the "I was hungry and you fed me..." stuff... Salvation, redemption, or if you prefer (as I do) liberation: it's about all of us together: that's the slick thing about Jesus... he doesn't often offer up a load of religious bullshit... This is nothing but straight up FreakNation...