I sit at my desk, cluttered with papers and cards, mementos and reminders, with a cat sleeping -laying in front of the keyboard, head upon my arm, and there is a stillness in the air. Outside is quiet, the stillness that a winter's night can bring, and inside almost no noise is heard except the snuffling of a basset hound as he sleeps near the fire, and my husband typing upon his laptop. A candle is lit on the desk and a lamp in the corner, but the dark of a December's eve seeps in through the windows, where the curtains are not yet drawn.
And I wait. But for what I'm not sure. There is a sense of expectancy, of hope, of longing for something not named but hungered for. I listen, almost as if to hear a call of music or greeting from somewhere I've always known yet never walked. To see a glimpse of the home I was born for but have not yet arrived at.
Is this what Advent is about? Is this what all the preparation is for? To enhance and sharpen our longing for the voice of the Lord? To deepen our homesickness for a place we've never been but journey towards our whole lives? The King's Country which is just beyond what we can see, but bids us come ever closer?
As we prepare our hearts to celebrate the first Nativity, are we not also preparing for the day when Emmanuel, God with us, is there not only in Spirit but in person?
Much of our lives is spent in waiting, for other people, for work, for "things to fall into plan"....but how much of that time, where we are trapped in the act of pausing, of stopping, do we use to prepare ourselves? Advent is about waiting upon God for the promised gift of the Savior, and about readying ourselves for that arrival. And in that waiting, we seek, we long for, and we listen. If we listen intently enough, we can almost hear the far-off horns and songs bidding welcome to our Father's home.
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