Osler's Razor

When I was a kid, I didn't think much about Advent. It was just those weeks before Christmas, busy with school and holiday things. Only later did I find that Advent is a season of its own, with a unique meaning and emotion. It is the time of solemn waiting and preparation for Christ.

Waiting. How do we do that? There are probably a million answers to that, but for me there is a need to seek out a bit of quiet reflection and anticipation amid all the activities. It's hard to find that quiet sometimes.

One place that I can find it is in my Sunday School classroom at about 9:30 Sunday morning. My class, the Roundtable, is a wonderful small group of people with very different backgrounds (a journalist, a linguist, an Old Testament scholar, a theatrical costume expert, an archaologist...), and a common sense of wonder-filled questioning. But at 9:30, none of them are there yet. I walk into that room with the morning light pouring in, and sit alone in the circle. At Advent, it is just right-- the quiet, the calm, the presence of the Light (as the Quakers would say). My heart leaps a little, there is a hint of joy, and that anticipation, child-like longing, creeps in.

In ones and twos, the others arrive, and the circle fills in. It is the perfect break from my sacred aloneness, the gradual fellowship of loved friends. Each Sunday morning, it is all there in a microcosm, the waiting, the arrival, the fellowship, the study of the gospels and the entry of the Holy Spirit in a still, small moment. As we talk, the ideas whirl around and build on one another until, too soon, there is no more time and we rush out into the world, transformed once again.