Waiting

I had an interesting trip to the grocery store this week. I do not enjoy grocery shopping, so I’m pretty brisk about it. “Get in and get out!” is my motto. But I happened to arrive on a day or at a time when everyone else in the store seemed to be driving those little motorized carts. There was a blockage on the canned fruit aisle, caused by a head-on of two of these little carts. So I dodged up the pasta row, when another one came zipping straight at me and a woman exclaimed “Finally! A tall person!” She explained that she had made three loops already, hoping for someone who could hand her down the pasta she wanted, shelved high above where she could reach from her seat. I thought about what that would be like for me, who wants to get out of there as quickly as possible, to have to loop around for every item while I waited in hope that someone would be coming to help me out. Not a happy thought.

I cruised on, feeling pretty good about my ability to reach angel hair pasta at will, when I got into a log-jam on the spice aisle. I just wanted to grab the curry powder and go, but there was a gentleman there who needed help finding salt. I showed him where it was and he engaged me in a conversation about whether it was okay to eat something without an expiration date, something his mother had told him never to do. As I tried to reassure him that salt would be an exception to that rule, another cart came down and stopped right in front of us, trapping us there in the spices. And then, I kid you not, this man said “Since we’re all stuck here together for a moment, let me tell you a joke…” and he did. The woman cruised on, determined to find her particular spice at a cheaper price (which as an aside, I find really impressive, because it means two trips to the grocery store to save a buck, by a person who is not ambulatory, which would be one of Dante’s lower circles to me). This joking, salt-buying man then proceeded to tell me of the death of his wife in the last year, the loneliness he feels, the difficulties he’s had in his family and ended it all by telling me, “I just want to find a woman”. Wait! Was I being picked up in the spice aisle? I don’t really know why he said that to me, I think it was just the pain of facing Christmas alone. Finding the yard covered in snow for the first time in 20 years and having a joke to tell, and no one to share them with. I can really understand that. I stood there sharing his pain for a moment and feeling very inadequate.

As my groceries were tallied up, the checker complained about how everybody is always in a hurry. She was catching her husband’s cold and she just wanted to slow everything down. In fact she wanted to take a nap. And then she told me all about her husband’s poor health and the weariness she felt from taking care of him and working and trying to keep everything together. I went home in a reflective mood. This is the season of Advent, when we wait in expectancy for the coming of Christ. This coming is past, present and future and as I thought about the forty-five minutes or so I had spent at the local market, encountering the faces of helplessness, loneliness and fear, I felt so strongly that these people needed the “now” part of Christmas. The belief that Christ’s coming can also be celebrated as the very real presence of the Son of God in our very ordinary lives. Whatever we face during this season, Christ is right beside us in it, working for our good even when we can’t see it. That is a precious gift to hang on to as we wait.

Here is a poem I ran across recently by George Herbert (1593-1633), an English rector, which beautifully combines our present need with the waiting of the Advent season:

The Call

Come my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love.