Advent Waiting and Lessons from Cricket
Since being a teenage boy, I have sometimes struggled with learning how to wait. Many of us like being in control. We don’t like too much open-endedness. We like action and planning and are often not very patient. While we have all benefitted from such drive, we have also partly lost the capacity to simply be, surrendering to the moment, patient and open to what the day, week, month and year will bring.
Last Sunday I watched the 1st XI Cricket side play St Gregory’s College in the opening match of the Marist Cricket Carnival which we have the privilege to host. I have always wondered how people could play and also watch subsequent days of the same game.
Like many, however, I have come to appreciate how cricket teaches you to wait with patience and poise, perhaps listening to a test match on the ABC radio as company. Suddenly something happens and turns the entire game upside down. Indeed, that is what happened last Sunday.
I think what can happen in cricket might be an apt metaphor for Advent waiting. Last Sunday the Church began its first week period of watchful waiting which we call the Advent season. While everything speeds up in December, the Church asks us to slow down for four weeks and devote ourselves to the discipline of waiting and listening.
As one has to wait patiently in cricket, so the Church asks its community to wait patiently in order to journey with Christ. As we wait during the next four weeks, immersed in the ancient stories, we slow down and may even touch our own inner longings and dreams.
Questions may arise in our minds: Are we patient enough to listen to our heart? Do we need to rectify relationships? Do we need to get in touch with friends and family? How is our relationship with God going to enter our lives? Taking time to slow down and let go of planning and instead listen to the voices of scripture and the silence underneath all our words can be an immensely enriching experience.
I hope you all have a wonderful season of Advent waiting.
