On Being Blog

How We Wait

by Peter A. Friedrichs, guest contributor

Awaiting Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee at Disneyland. (photo: huffmans/Flickr)

Advent is a time of waiting. For Christians, it’s a time of waiting for the arrival of the Christ child. For others, Advent is a time of waiting for a hoped-for future, waiting for the time of bleakness to pass and for new joy to arrive.

We spend a lot of our time waiting for a “hoped-for” future. Waiting for the arrival of our own newborn child. Waiting to get that promotion at work. Waiting in line at the checkout counter. Waiting for the light to change. One writer I know said, after returning from a recent trip to Disneyland, that she realized that an amusement park is 10 percent thrills and 90 percent walking and waiting. “I realized,” she writes, “that that same equation works for most of life … including Christmas. So one of life’s greater challenges is to enjoy the 90 percent.”

We can wait with eager anticipation, like a child who can’t get to sleep on Christmas Eve. We can wait with boredom, allowing our mind to wander and even forgetting what we’re waiting for. We can also wait with frustration, like the driver who honks his horn at the car ahead of him because the light turned green two whole seconds ago. We also can wait with supreme patience. There’s a reason we call that “the patience of a saint.” It’s very hard to achieve and sustain. How we wait says a lot about who we are.

While it’s good to look ahead to some hoped-for event, there’s a danger in all this waiting, too. The danger is that, in waiting, we become so “future-focused” that we forget the gifts of the present moment. We overlook what we have in anticipation of receiving what we want. And then there’s the danger of disappointment. When we pin our hopes on a wish or a dream, we can be crushed if it doesn’t come true.

In the spirit of the season, Simon John Barlow, a British Unitarian minister, urges us to wait for a particular gift in a particular way: “Prepare the way to welcome your inner-Christ child — the being of love and light, the spark of holiness that lies deep in us all. Seek the signs of hope and promise in your life and the world around you — the stars that point the way to the Light of God. Make your way to the stable of peace and acceptance in the secret depths of your heart.”

In this season of Advent, I wish you good waiting. Waiting that allows your hearts to soar to a longed-for future and your feet to stay planted in the goodness and gladness of today. May this season bring you joy in your present, in your presents, and by and through your presence.

Reverend Friedrichs is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Media, Pennsylvania. After working as an attorney for nearly 20 years, he followed his call to ministry and was ordained in 2006. You can listen to his sermons on his congregation’s website.

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