Woman, Waiting

All Creation Waits © Jan L. Richardson

And so we come to Advent, this sacred season of expectation and anticipation that draws us toward the festival of Christmas. In these days there is much talk of waiting; it is the enduring theme of Advent, and rightly so. For a culture that so often moves too quickly, too unmindfully, Advent’s invitation to wait comes as a reminder of the wisdom of the pause, the standing back, the stopping to think. To ponder. To pray.

Yet I sometimes struggle with that word, waiting. So often we associate waiting with passivity and idleness. With boredom and dullness. With a sense of helplessness in the face of time that seems to stretch out interminably.

There is this, too: at the same time that waiting can be a corrective to rushing, the flip side is that waiting can sometimes become an excuse for not taking a needed action.

Sometimes we wait too long.

The season of Advent challenges us to ponder how it is that we wait. How (and whether) we engage our waiting as a spiritual practice. How we bring our discernment to our waiting, that we may know when to hold back and when it is time to act.

I have been engaged in some world-class waiting in recent years. One of the threads of waiting has involved my book Night Visions, a collection of reflections and artwork for Advent and Christmas that was published a dozen years ago. The short version of a much longer, tedious story is that, happily, the rights to Night Visions have reverted to me. For a few years, thanks in large measure to my friend Jane Heil, we have been exploring options for bringing the book back into print.

Finally the waiting is nearing an end, though some extra waiting has been tacked onto it. Owing to massive problems with the printer that have resulted in maddening delays, this book designed for Advent and Christmas should arrive just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Still and all, the end of the waiting is in sight. Just this week I had occasion to review the newly-printed interior of the book. As I turned the pages that I had awaited so long, memories stirred of the seasons I passed through as I composed those lines and pieced together those collages. The image above is one of the collages from that Advent book; the poem below is also from those pages. May they be gifts in your waiting, talismans in these days of expectation.

Woman, Waiting

Except that it is not visible
to the naked eye
all the ways
she has ceased to wait.
They cannot see in her
that her waiting carries no idleness,
no passiveness.
She is not resigned,
awaiting the delivery
of her sealed fate.
It has little to do with patience.

Her waiting has not been
a biding of time
but an abiding in time,
dwelling,
making herself at home.

She has taken every last frayed end,
knotted it;
every loose thread,
woven it;
every jagged edge,
worn it smooth;
every ragged scrap,
stitched it up.

This woman, waiting,
is the wise maiden with oil in plenty,
the grown woman who knows
the time of birthing,
the aged crone who feels in her flesh
the measure of her days.

It cannot be seen in her
all the ways she is ready.
But soon,
in the fullness of time,
she will cry out
and be delivered.

How are you waiting in these days? What are you waiting for?

May wisdom attend your waiting. A blessed Advent to you.

[Image and poem © Jan L. Richardson from Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas.]

P.S. In this season, I would be glad to have your company over at my blog The Advent Door, where I’m offering reflections and artwork as we travel toward Christmas.

Posted on Saturday, December 11th, 2010 at 12:19 AM. Filed under Advent, Sacred Time.