8

Preparing the Soil          

Trish Worsnip

Adapted from Bertolt Brecht, To Posterity

What times are these when a conversation
About trees is almost a crime
Because it includes a silence about so many misdeeds.

True enough: I still earn my living.
But, believe me, it’s only luck.
Nothing I do gives me the right to eat my fill.
It happens that I’ve been spared. (When my luck gives out
I shall be lost).

I’d like to be wise.
In the old books you read what is wise.
To keep out the strife of the world and spend
Your brief span without fear.
And to refrain from violence

Render good for evil
Not fulfilling one’s desires, but forget
Is accounted wise.
All these are beyond me:

My resources are not great. The goal
Lies far ahead.
So I pass the time
Granted to me on earth.

And yet we know well:
Even hatred of vileness
Distorts a man’s features.
Even anger at injustice
Makes hoarse his voice. Ah, we
Who desire the soil for kindness
Must ourselves be kind.

So what is patient or impatient living in the Advent season, awaiting Christmas this particular year? We are blessed that we can more easily shun the commercial trappings and the frantic expectation of celebration of something that once happened. Maybe we will have space to get ready in hope for something that has not yet happened. But how do we pass the expectation of the coming this year?

Christmas celebration itself will be different for most people with loss, sadness, fear and effort to make things the best. Shall we look back nostalgically and try to repeat what we have always done? This year it will no longer be a celebration of what happened long ago, our beloved traditions, and enjoying whatever it is to ourselves and sharing this with others. Will we bewail the changes or reinvent them in various ways - carefully aided by commentators, advertisements and ever new virtual platforms?

Or can we take advantage of the changes? Will we fan the glimmer of hopes: honest and commitment politicians, more kindness and generosity to family, neighbours and strangers, the arc of the universe bending towards justice, the healing of the planet, …. and universal availability of safe and efficient vaccines. All worth working towards in every season. 

But there is something even larger. I have only glimpses of something: “my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot complete the figure by the experience of sight but I can divine it by conscience” (Theodore Parker). This is HOPE. A mystery. But by faith it inspires us to work and prepare the way as John the Baptist urges us.

Do we await with patience or impatience? Patience implies passivity but for many living in our busy world this is too hard. We don’t want to be told to wait. But we are not children taught to wait for the presents and the festivities (“three more sleeps”). Counting the days in Advent Calendars (now with a daily chocolate for a boost) and the never ending lists to do - including all “good deeds”. How can we live these days expecting something we don’t know? Not for the return of something that was (and not exactly the way we celebrate).

Waiting around for something interesting? Possibly a rescue - shall we rely on the scientists? Will patiently or impatiently waiting be enough?  

Let this year Advent remind us the art of expectant living in the here and now. Even if we will not be able to sing the hymns in church together we can find ways to prepare the soil.