Let us pray: O God, may these words help us to glimpse signs of your presence in our lives, that we may be guided to be your people with fullness and integrity. Amen.

    Gary looked out his window in the gathering dusk and mused on the day just past and the week ahead. Advent had arrived without fanfare, not because it was unimportant, but because in the commercial world, advent had already started since well before Hallowe’en. He couldn’t remember when he first heard the Christmas songs and carols on the store music systems, but it was at least three weeks ago.

    He remembered the wry humour of that fridge magnet and wall poster that you could often see in tacky souvenir shops, Please grant me patience, God, but hurry! He thought it was perfect for the way that everyone treated the season of advent - wanting more time to get ready, but in a frantic rush that always seemed to want Christmas to come early. The one good thing about it, was that as long as you could avoid the temptation to take advantage of the boxing day sales, the real Christmas season was often just what he wanted. The parties were over, the special events were done and even the seasonal music seemed less relentless and ever present. In fact, when it came right down to it, he almost looked forward to Boxing Day more than Christmas. Nothing to go to, no demands on his time, a few days off from work, friends and family around without the pressure to make Christmas just right, whether it was the perfect gift, or the perfect Christmas Dinner.

    The real advent, the time of focussed, active waiting was his kind of season. For him, especially in the last few years, he saw it as a kind of spiritual study leave, a time when he could reflect not only on the year just past, but on the days ahead. He realised that this often had him swimming against the current. He wanted to slow down and go inward, when everything around him seemed on a dedicated outward push.

    He did not look forward to the tension this created in his life. It was difficult to be himself when everything and in many ways everyone, wanted him to be something else. He often wondered what he could do about this. Sometimes this wondering resulted in a promise to do the external things early, so that he could spend advent the way he wanted. But it didn’t work. He was never together enough to do what he needed ahead of time, and it could not stop the outside pressures that came on so many fronts in the lead-up to Christmas.

    All of these thoughts were going through his active mind, as he watched darkness descend on the city streets. Four weeks until Christmas. The best he could do, he guessed, was hope for moments like this, when he could just sit and reflect for a few minutes. He knew that pretty soon the phone would ring, or an item on his to-do list would pop back into his head, and the harried, hurried season would be back in gear. There are only so many things you can control on your own.

    Then it struck him. There are only so many things you can control on your own. It was like the old story about the optimist and the pessimist. The optimist said, “We live in the best of all possible worlds” and the pessimist said, “Unfortunately, that’s true”. Gary was looking at things from the perspective of a pessimist. He was looking at things hopelessly, as if it was only up to him. But what was advent after all, but the dawning of realisation that we live in God’s world. O Come, O Come Emmanuel - that haunting advent hymn, said it all so perfectly - Come God-with-us, Come. We don’t have to do it alone, in fact, it’s not even about what we control. It’s really about what God would like us to do.

    Just like the darkness that was descending on the world outside his window, a new kind of peace was settling over Gary. There was comfort in the darkness and the way it settled on the earth, just as these new realisations were settling into his consciousness. Okay, that’s what I need, he thought. We can do this together, God and I. The outward push that seems so relentless is not all bad, in fact, there are some really good things happening in this season. A Jesus parable popped into his mind about wheat and chaff - hold onto what is good and let the chaff blow away. You see, that’s why this advent time of active waiting is so important, he thought, as a new sense of contentment and determination excited and settled him at the same time.

    All that in a few reflective moments at his desk at dusk, and then the phone rang. Amen.