Contents:
TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE...
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
MERRY CHRISTMAS
… and so I sit, on the front row of the Queen’s Hall, waiting for a dress rehearsal, that should have started an hour and fifteen minutes ago, to begin. But in vain… as the quiet hum of the sound system permeates the auditorium, punctuated by the white noise that is certain to annoy the audience should a similar experience be felt tomorrow night… the drummer of the band walks by, carrying a Smalta… no doubt oblivious to the “No food, no drink, no smoking” signs posted in the building…
How is it we ignore the warning signs when there’s no one around to enforce them? I note, often, when taking a taxi up to the college, the driver will pause at the red light, look over at the police station on the adjacent corner, and turn through the intersection in open and nonchalant disregard of the law… but that’s going on another tangent. I wonder if anyone has ever done a scientific study on the physiology of waiting… I know how it affects me: it makes me tense… it makes me nervous… sometimes, it makes me unable to function normally.
For example, I’m home… someone is expected to visit at a particular time, and I’m, say, grading examinations… well, once that time passes, I become physically incapable of concentrating on my task. I must look out the door and see where they are… pace the house… I’m reminded of the original TSTT waiting days – that’s our phone company. They said they’d come… and I virtually wore a pathway from my dining room table out the door to the front step and back… but of course, they didn’t come…
So what is it about waiting that disturbs me so? I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s the idea of putting your life on hold and being at the whim of another. Perhaps it because I don’t often practice passive waiting… where you wait, not really sure, or believing that the one for whom you wait will come… so that if they do, you’re happy, and if they don’t, then, oh well…
But if we consider, we’re waiting for Jesus Christ to come. Are we waiting actively, or passively? Does that waiting make us unable to become totally immersed in this life and what we’re doing here, or are we able to almost forget that we are waiting while what we do consumes us? Think about it…
If you haven’t seen tight scheduling before, check this one out: Sunday night, I have a banquet scheduled in Port-of-Spain for 5:00. (And if you believe that one is going to start on time, you probably haven’t been to Trinidad and experienced the … um… er… flexibility related to time here) And I have to be at that banquet because I’m probably going to be honoured, and if I’m not there, then no honour for us…
Now the banquet is scheduled to end around 8,
8:30… now if it starts late, then when will it end? So, now if it
ends at 8:30, and I get home around 9:30, and then have to put together
my last minute stuff and run to the airport, what are the chances of me
getting there for 11:05 (2 hours before my flight home)? Probably
pretty good, when you think about it, but we’ll take it a step at a time,
because to quote the words of a popular song, “anything can happen”
Well.. nothing happened. The banquet was quite nice… did I say banquet? I meant, recognition ceremony with “cocktails”. The flight was really uneventful. I slept through take-off, tried to sleep through landing, and slept in between… the food was interesting, as airplane food is wont to be… but I ordered the special vegetarian meal… and I’m still not sure what it was I ate… but then again, we bless it, and we eat it, and it does good to our bodies, right?
It’s nice to be home. Home is where the laptop is, someone has said… (who is that someone?) and so some of us carry our home with us… So I got home about 9 this morning, slept for a while, did a little shopping, drove in the driving snow, and now am watching the great Canadian pastime, ice hockey! And who knows, maybe before the night is out, I’ll bundle up and shovel some snow. There’s something about shovelling a driveway, it’s like sculpting a design out of the void, bringing order out of the chaos. I can imagine that it’s something like how God felt when he spoke into the “formless void” and brought forth the defined world we see evidence of today. But yes, home cooking, my own room, my home-friends, home cooking… Nice to be back…
It’s that season again… the season where we (or at least some of us) recognise the birth of Jesus Christ, in a manger in Bethlehem almost 2000 years ago. I’d like to propose something. Since the origin of Christmas is in the giving of a priceless gift, at great sacrifice, to a totally undeserving recipient, let us take the opportunity to sacrifice a little something to give of ourselves to someone who doesn’t deserve it. I mean, we often spend what we don’t have to give to ourselves, or to those we love and who we consider deserving. That’s nice, and everything, but there’s more we can do. The true spirit of Christmas, as I see it, is in giving to those who don’t deserve and who can’t repay. So do what your heart compels you to do, and if you feel to, let me (if you’d like to be anonymous) or us (reply to all) know what you’ve been inspired to do. There are only a couple of days left!
May God’s richest blessings rest on you in this season as you experience the warmth and joy associated with this time of year. You have my love, and my prayers!