Today’s sermon at the local UU church ended that way. It was an interesting message about active waiting, and the phrase was based on a piece from Annie Dillard‘s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in which the narrator “stalks” a muskrat, i.e. spends a lot of time waiting on the creek bank for a muskrat to show up. The theme was that sometimes, we have to wait. And we can spend our lives passively waiting for the next big thing, or we can realize that waiting is an integral part of the human experience – as every funeral reminds us, life is one big wait for death – and spend the waiting in something productive, learning from the wait.

Right now, as I’m on The Great Agent Hunt, there is a part of my brain that’s always waiting… for an email, for a phone call, for some message, yes or no, that means I can put that transaction in a category and move forward or move on. But other than making sure I always have a query (or two. Or five) out there, there’s nothing I can do to hustle things. I just have to wait.

When I started this process, the best advice any writer gave me was to write something else. And so I’m working on my third novel, and after endless critiquing and reviewing of the first two, it has been a wonderful miracle to get back to the first stages of creation again. Those days when characters and plot are still being carved from the silence, and themes and motifs are appearing, frequently unbidden, in the words. So I’ve found my way of stalking a writing career, as maybe the minister would say.

So many faiths right now have a waiting – an advent – for the birth, for the light to go out, for the light to return, for the year to end and new resolutions to begin… this built in annual reminder that sometimes as humans we have to wait and hope, and yet continue to find meaning inside of that space. Blessed Advent to you, however you choose to celebrate it (or not to celebrate it). May you find peace, hope, and a reason for goodwill.