I am the Expected one, You are waiting for me, You are waiting for me to finally decide to be born. This will happen you know, only at the end. The breath of death will be the true first definitive cry of the newborn, but in the meantime, You continue to wait for me. Advent is my heartfelt thanks for your infinite patience.
I always thought I had to wait for You to be born. Advent was always explained to me thus: now is the time to wait for the birth of Jesus. Prepare your heart. As if ordinary waiting wasn’t enough, it created an Emptiness that pushed me to continually search for shreds of a promised life, an Emptiness that hurt, an Emptiness that made my whole life a time of waiting and never left me in peace.
Every year I would turn on lights, look for words, images, and wander, and then multiply, foolishly multiply things to do, how idiotic, one who waits must empty himself, must feel the slowness of time passing too slowly; instead, this time seems all about filling emptiness with nothing and a mad, breathless rush towards Christmas. Yet it was Christmas that I was waiting for, so I could finally start breathing again.
I didn’t understand that Advent is not a time for us to wait for You, because the one waiting is You. Your birth has already happened, it is ours which is still in progress. And You await us. You accompany our rebirth, daily.
