Thinking about...
... Advent
 

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In the drab waiting-room

the failed travellers, resigned, sleep

on the hard benches, inured

to postponement and foul coffee.

Hope has given up on them.

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There are also the impatient,

pacing platforms, and the driven,

purple with frustration, abusing

their mobiles, for the hardest part

of waiting is the not doing.

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Truly to wait is pure dependence.

But waiting too long the heart

grows sclerotic. Will it still

be fit to leap when the time comes?

Prayer is waiting with desire.

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Two ancient lives incarnate

century on century

of waiting forGod, their waiting-room

his temple, waiting on his presence,

marking time by practising

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the cycle of sacrifices,

ferial and festival,

circling onward, spiralling

towards a centre out ahead,

seasons of revolving hope.

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Holding out for God who cannot

be given up for dead, holding

him to his promises - not now,

not just yet, but soon, surely,

eyes will see what hearts await.

                                                                                                                   Richard Bauckham: Wait and See (Simeon and Anna)

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us

O long-sought With-ness for a world without,

O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.

Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name,

Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,

O quickened little wick so tightly curled,

Be folded with us into time and place,

Unfold for us the mystery of grace

And make a womb of all this wounded world.

O heart of heaven beating in the earth,

O tiny hope within our hopelessness,

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,

To touch a dying world with new-made hands

And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

                                                                                                                                           Malcolm Guite

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For a child has been born to us, a son is given to us;

he will bear the symbol of dominion on his shoulder, and his title will be:

Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty Hero, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

                                                                                                                                                 Isaiah 9:6

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