Becoming

Advent began last Sunday and for me it is a time of preparation and hope. It is both joyful and reflective. My thinking in life has always centered around becoming. What am I waiting for and hoping to become? For me becoming is always in process– looking out to see what one never saw before.

A reminder from the Church of Ascension newsletter:

“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.”
— T.S. Eliot, East Coker

I like to do many things at one time. But suddenly I am focused on slowing down and looking at what is right in front of me. Everyday I try to appreciate nature more and more. Nature constantly changes and yet sometimes the changes are slow and very subtle. My blue heron who lives in the lake a couple of blocks from my apartment has become my dear friend. She is everywhere and I love her tall shapely body, her fishing, her solitude and her beauty. She waits and she hopes and in the waiting is her faith that there will be fish– her food.

What does this have to do with Advent? In Latin– adventus–Advent means coming. We can extend that meaning to the coming of Christ as an infant and someday the future coming of Christ. We wait but we do not know when the coming will happen. I know that everyone does not believe this. For me it has taken a long time to grow into these beliefs, even though I grew up with them as a young child. It somehow made it harder to really claim it, because it was so familiar.

Becoming is to look forward to a self who is not apparent at this moment. Change will come for me and I am certain my beliefs will take an even deeper meaning as I age. The heron watches and waits all day for the right moment to lunge upon its food. Its neck can extend or fold into itself so as to disguise itself or lengthening for its quick reactions. Our becoming is our readiness to face a new world.