August Advent, part 3: Advent-ing

As we wait, I need new words (words new to me) to help me to continue to reframe our waiting.

I know that Advent usually functions as a noun, yet I want to use Advent as a verb meaning “to wait with hope.” And so I think of Advent-ing as describing the process of actively waiting with hope.

In a previous blog I mentioned that while the things upon which we wait remain out of our control, we can choose the way in which we embrace and live into this waiting.

Advent-ing is hard, though, especially when we want the thing for which we wait to occur imminently.

This week we celebrate Caleb’s 13th birthday - and I think of his arrival 13 years ago. We waited with hope as his due date approached and then passed. And then every day after that due date day we would wake up and wonder if this would be the day.  We we’re quite sure, yet we embraced the day how we could - still had a cup of tea, went on a walk, had lunch, read books to Ceara, went on another walk, drank another cup of tea, read more books, had dinner, drank more tea…all the while waiting, wondering “Is today the day?”… repeat… for two weeks.

And family and friends would call us or text us - “Is there a baby yet?” and we would reply, “Nope. Not yet, still waiting.” And it didn’t frustrate us or annoy us for people to ask or for us to wait. Well, not really, except the summer heat and humidity in Maine without A/C made Courtney extremely uncomfortable. We knew we couldn’t rush the baby out, and so we waited with excitement, with anticipation, with hope… for two weeks.

I want to approach this time with the same hopeful anticipation - something amazing is coming… yay! And until that happens, we can choose to see the amazing that is already happening around us - in the sights and sounds of creation and in the lives of those around us.

It reminds me of that verse in Isaiah about God’s restoration:

I am about to do a new thing; 

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness  and rivers in the desert.

While this may seem a bit out of context here, I believe it deals with waiting in anticipation for God’s new thing that is about to happen and at the same time it is already happening.

Maybe that helps me to get at Advent-ing a bit better - we can wait with hope because we recognize the hopeful signs of life, new beginnings, areas of transformation already occurring around us. Advent-ing catches up in the continual, never-ending work of God’s redemption of the world.

I love this prayer mash-up that comes from prayer books I’ve come across during my time in Jerusalem and Massachusetts.

We praise you God, for you are good, you do good, and all day long you are at work for good in the world. Alleluia. Amen.