Waiting for what will come

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For those of you not acquainted with the church year, the season of Advent is the first of the church seasons and starts four Sundays before Christmas. Church has some weird seasons, not really attached to the seasons of the year but all on their own little special schedule. Anyway the season of Advent is about waiting for what will come and preparing for what will come. For Christians, that would be the celebration of the birth of Christ (not exploring the fact that Jesus was most likely born in February or March or that the church just kind of absorbed solstice celebrations and co-opted them, just going with the flow here). But as I’m in church listening to the sermon and having my mind wander as it does, it occurs to me that waiting is a human condition. We all wait. We wait for a birthday, we wait in line at the store, we wait for a diagnosis, we wait for all sorts of things in all sorts of places. I have a real tendency to find myself thinking about something and thinking well, I’ll wait until x happens before I do that. I won’t go on a tropical vacation until I lose weight, I will wait until the kids graduate to travel, I’ll wait until I feel better, I’ll wait until tomorrow, I’ll wait . . .  I’ll wait . . . . I need to stop waiting and start doing. Or, if I really do have to wait, make it active waiting, preparing or using the time to get ready instead of passively waiting. Or do something while I wait. If I want something to happen, then I need to not just wait to have it happen, I need to take action to make it happen. Somewhere I read someone say that if you choose to do an action, then you also choose the consequences of that action. And if you wish for something to happen, then you need to take the actions required to make that something happen.

So here I am reading back over that paragraph trying to think of something that I really want to happen that I need to start taking action on. Lose weight? Write Christmas cards? Clean the bathroom? You know, I think I need to set my sights a little higher and think of something bigger and more fun. I’ll get back to you on that.

Today’s challenge was to schedule something fun to do on the weekend. I would think if your weekend is during the week, then schedule it when you can. Unfortunately, next weekend contains a sleep-over party of 5 twelve year old boys so some of the weekend will be spent not sleeping and the rest will be spent recovering. So I’ll try for the weekend after that.

Today’s gratitude: I’m grateful for Thanksgiving dinner left-overs that were still delicious and meant I didn’t have to cook tonight.