What are you waiting for?

“What are you waiting for?”

When you read that sentence, how do you hear it spoken in your head? Do these words elicit memories of a mother’s tender words to an imaginative child looking out the window?

Do you hear these words as a criticism for procrastination or fear in the face of looming decisions?

How we read and hear those words reveals something about how we wait.

The dictionary defines the word advent as “the arrival of something momentous that has been awaited.” The word awaited means “anticipated or expected with hope”.

Last Sunday, churches all over the world celebrated the beginning of the season of Advent- four weeks of preparation for the coming of the Lord at Christmas.

There is a tension to the Advent season because on one hand- we are anticipating a celebration of an event that happened over 2000 years ago — the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem — and on the other- we wait for the Lord to come again.

This can be confusing and so instead most people like to think of Advent as a time to get ready for Christmas. We deck the halls and the trees and if you’re at my house, you even decorate the chicken coop in festive greens and pretty white lights.

But in truth, Advent is so much more. Renowned priest, writer and advocate for people with disabilities, Father Henri Nouwen once said, “Our lives are a continuing advent-waiting for the Lord to come.”

Indeed, we are always waiting for something. But how we wait says more about who we are than about the person or event we’re waiting for.

Before COVID-19 was defined as a pandemic, I was preparing for Lent — the season of preparation for Easter Sunday — by reflecting on a desire to simplify my life.

I sensed in prayer that the Lord was promising me “a most beautiful Lent.” I translated that to mean easier — trying to forget that the “beauty” of Lent is found in the contemplation of the cross of Christ. We don’t get to Easter without first experiencing Good Friday.

In many ways, last spring was a beautiful Lent in its prescribed simplicity, which came from periods of lock-downs and times of isolation — even from those we love.

For some, those times made for an intimate celebration of Easter that left us longing for more of God and family. For others, the devastating loss of loved ones to COVID and the inability to grieve and celebrate these lives probably felt like Easter never came.

Looking back, from the vantage point of this final month in 2020, it seems as though we have lived in what one of my priest friends recently described as a “pandemic advent.”

Late winter and early spring, we were all running around and making preparations for this unseen enemy. For some, it struck close to home. For others, especially people outside of New York, it was easier to ignore or fall prey to conspiracy theories about COVID being a fake disease.

For those of us who care for loved ones who are elderly, medically fragile or struggle with chronic disease and cancer, our lives changed in a span of a few weeks. We all entered into this “pandemic advent” waiting for the arrival of the unknown.

I began this Advent the way I have begun many holiday seasons over the last 24 years, in the hospital with my daughter. It was a planned visit to monitor the seizures and to examine the shunt in her brain. It was the first time Jo had been in the hospital in 15 months — which is a lovely, longer span than she has had in recent years.

We have returned to NYC a few times for appointments and outpatient testing. We felt safe, especially because our visits revolved around NYU, one of the epicenters of care for the initial outbreak of COVID-19.

People follow protocols and wear masks. The health centers we visit are very careful to protect patients from infection. I definitely felt safer in NYC than on the North Fork during our tourist seasons this summer and fall.

Still, this time I was more concerned about an overnight stay, knowing numbers locally and in NYC were rising at alarming rates. I decided not to bring Johanna’s service dog because I didn’t want to have to leave Jo’s hospital room and take the elevator multiple times during the day to toilet her dog.

The nurses and doctors wore masks and shields and Jo and I wore masks when they came into the room. After a while, we settled in and felt more comfortable.

In the 24-hour stay, we had some conversations with nurses who worked on COVID units. The unit we were in was transformed into a COVID unit last spring because they are private rooms with negative pressure, allowing for isolation cases to be treated with less chance of contamination to other patients.

When my daughter was being transported to MRI, we passed a COVID patient on a ventilator who was going for testing. The doctors and nurses were cloaked in full PPE. The patient lay in the bed as the ventilator regulated their breathing.

My heart broke as we passed in the hallway. We were masked, but still only about three feet away. I held my breath and whispered a prayer for the patient and one of protection for my daughter.

It was a sobering reminder of where we were last spring and where we may end up in this second wave if we aren’t more careful.

On the way home from the hospital, I had another sobering reminder of the how quickly things can change when a merging car hit me on the Long Island Expressway. Thank God we were fine and there were no bodily injuries in either car.

I’ve been very stressed this past week dealing with insurance adjusters, emailing doctors, all while watching COVID and hospitalization numbers rise.

And I’m still hearing people complain about holiday parties and wearing a mask.

Really? Please just wear the damn mask.

If you were there with me when the COVID patient on the ventilator passed us in the hall, escorted by brave nurses and doctors in full PPE, you might realize that your holiday party is just not worth the risk and wearing a mask is a simple way to help.

2020 has been a very long Lent and Advent all rolled up into one, as we wait for the pandemic to end and life to return to normal. Whatever normal looks like when this is over, I pray to God it is a slower and gentler life which we choose to lead, a life that is kinder and holier than the ones we were living before the pandemic.

Like it or not, we are all in this advent together, awaiting a momentous event. Personally, I’m waiting for an end to the chaos and the danger of this pandemic. But more than all this, I am waiting for Jesus to come more fully into our lives, our nation and the world.

I believe in the miracle of Christmas — that God came to earth as a tiny baby in a manger and so He longs to come into our hearts each day. And I believe one day, we shall all meet him face to face.

Some of you may be rolling your eyes as you read this. But what if I’m right?

I wait with hope for the Lord to come. What are you waiting for?

Correction: This article was originally published under the wrong byline.