A Season of Waiting

On the threshold

waiting

for the golden light

that desires to mirror itself

in my heart

inside

is silence

Advent, we say, is the season of waiting. We might more truly say that Advent is the season of desire - and desire unfulfilled, at that. Waiting is a form of emptiness, but it’s an emptiness that implies expectation: we wait for someone or something, do we not? And we desire the arrival of what we await.

In our hectic world we constantly face a barrage of distractions, from the chattering voices of social media with which we constantly keep in touch via our ubiquitous smartphones, from the pressures of commercialism which urge us to buy, buy, buy, at the very time of the year when we should be retreating into ourselves in silent contemplation and reflection. For this also is an aspect of advent: it is – or should be – a time of quiet reflection.

If only we can manage to be silent in ourselves, to still all those chattering voices which distract us, then we allow the true spirit of advent to reveal itself. That sense of expectant wonder is always present. Advent is in every moment. And that moment is universal. “Peace, be still.” were the words we are told Jesus spoke to calm the storm on that far Sea of Galilee. If we allow those words to echo in our hearts, whether we are Christian or not, and whether we celebrate the Christian day of Advent or not, we allow the true spirit of a universal advent to emerge, and we find ourselves filled with a renewing spirit of anticipation, wonder and silent joy.

The Journeying Star

Oh my heart, my other self;

you who dwell in city or in desert,

or in the cathedral silence of forests,

or close by the sea’s great voice

which is my voice also,

you look up and wonder at my shining.

Do you ask yourself:

what keeps me fixed in the night?

Why do I not journey

like the white and journeying moon?

There surely is heaven enough

in which to move;

there surely is space enough

for me to arc across the dark

above your head.

And yet I remain in my appointed place,

your dependable star,

obedient to your own stillness,

as fixed in my place as you are in yours:

we two are as immobile as mountains.

Perhaps you imagine

that if you remain in your place

then you always can find me;

you look up, and there I shall be:

we two are as predictable as the tides.

And then one night you move.

For the first time you dare

to take a single step,

and wonder of wonders:

I take that step with you.

You begin to walk, you move:

and I move with you.

And so your step becomes a journey,

and I journey with you

towards some promise,

some appointed destiny

some assignation rich with moment

for you and all who journey with you

towards your secret-bright redemption.

But wonder of wonders:

for the whole time you have been travelling

it is I who have remained in my appointed place:

it is you, my heart, who have been journeying;

and still you always can find me,

and I shall be with you

at your secret-bright redemption.

Illustration by Edmund Dulac, from the book The Stealers of Light by the Queen of Roumania