‘Patience is a virtue’ so the saying goes but, I have to admit, it is not something that comes naturally to me!
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of my favourite books. One of the characters is called Verruca Salt an impatient, spoiled little girl who has her parents wrapped around her finger. She wants everything she sees and is often heard to say, ‘I want it now!’ She meets a sticky end and perhaps we are more like her than we care to admit. We live in a world where we can communicate instantly via social media, text message, WhatsApp and email; a world where we can order items on line and expect them to be delivered tomorrow or even the same day; a world of fast food and instant access to events across the world.
So, when we have to wait for something, it is not surprising that we feel anything but patient. Like Verruca Salt we want it now! We are now in the season of advent, a time of patient waiting, a time of preparation filled with expectancy and hope. And yet so often it is a season spent rushing around. The only waiting we do is at the supermarket checkout and if you’re anything like me, you always pick the wrong queue and there is nothing patient about it!
Advent, the season of patient waiting, seems to get shorter each year with the world jumping straight from Halloween to Christmas and bypassing the season of advent completely. People stop only to open the little door of the advent calendar and eat the chocolate inside. Taking time out to reflect and be still feels like a luxury that we just can’t afford.
And yet in this advent season we need to do just that. We need to take time to allow ourselves to be filled with hope and joy. Hope not just for the things on our Christmas wish list but hope for the dark world in which we live; hope fulfilled in the birth of God’s own Son, Jesus. He brought light and love into this dark world.
Whenever a hungry child is fed, whenever a stranger is welcomed, whenever an act of kindness and compassion is carried out, that light shines brightly and can fill us and those around us with hope.
But if we spend all our time rushing from one thing to the next, we will never catch a glimpse of it and more importantly fail be part of it. So, this advent I encourage you to find a moment or two to consider how you might reflect a little of that light.
Who needs your help? Who are the lonely and isolated? Who are the hungry? Slow down and reflect how you might bring advent hope to your community?
Wishing you a hope-filled advent and a Christmas filled with joy!
Sally