Is There Anything Anymore Worth Waiting For?

When our daughter was one and one-half years old we decided not to put up our Christmas tree or to put out any gifts until Christmas Eve, after she and her baby brother had gone to bed. We had learned of Advent traditions in the Church that emphasized waiting while withholding the celebration of the coming of Christ until the beginning of the Christmas season (twelve days!) on December 25. We wanted to make our observance of Advent and Christmas at home consistent with traditions we were trying to practice in the Church.

On Christmas morning when Julie came into the living room and saw the newly decorated tree, she yelled with glee, "Pretty, pretty!" The gifts under the tree were secondary and incidental to the surprising beauty of the moment.

I ponder this memory in our contemporary world as we see the festival colors of Christmas arriving earlier and earlier each year. Our consumer-minded society is in such a hurry to get to the business of buying and selling things that we no longer know the meaning of waiting for Christmas. We live in a time of instant gratification, when we are in an ever-increasing rush to grasp the newest fad to satisfy our seemingly insatiable desires, and the practice of waiting is looked upon with disdain. Offices, warehouses and garages are choked with yesterday's computers because they are not "fast enough."

Even in the Church the season of Advent waiting no longer commands the attention it once did. We fall into lock step with the commercial world around us, seeking to get on with the business of "celebrating" Christmas, uneasy with waiting to contemplate the awesome meaning of God's coming into our human lives in the gift of a tiny baby. Not waiting, we are no longer surprised by the beauty of the moment.

It makes me wonder if, in our lives today, we know of anything anymore that might be worth waiting for. Are we willing to contemplate that possibility? Would we be willing to withhold "celebration," and to practice the healthful art of waiting in hopeful anticipation of some moment of surprising beauty? I wonder as I wander!

--Bob F.