Advent 2: Waiting

Advent 2

Waiting. Advent is a season of waiting and I don’t like waiting.

I don’t like waiting on the winter grass that we so excitedly planted last month (come on rain!). I don’t like waiting for the timid and finicky donkeys to finally enter their new pasture to guard the cows. I don’t even like waiting for the winter sun to go down at 5:30pm so I can get the chickens into their egg mobiles. Most of all, with my ego in charge, I like to judge things good or bad without waiting for them to play out. I don’t like waiting.

There’s another story about a farmer who was much better at waiting. The farmer owned only one horse and depended on the horse for everything: to pull the plow and to draw the wagon.

One day a bee stung the horse and in fright it ran away into the mountains. His neighbors said, “We are really sorry about your bad luck in losing your horse.”

But the old farmer shrugged and said, “Bad luck, good luck, who is to say?”

A week later his horse came back accompanied by twelve wild horses and the farmer was able to corral all the animals. The news spread and his neighbors returned to said, “Congratulations on this fine group of horses.” To which the old man again shrugged and said, “Good luck, bad luck, who can say?”

The farmer’s son decided to make the most of what certainly looked like good fortune and started to break the wild horses so that they could be sold. But he got thrown from one of them and broke his leg. At the news of this accident, his neighbors came again, saying, “We are so sorry about the bad luck of your son’s fall. And of course, the old man said, “Bad luck, good luck, who can say?”

Several weeks later, war broke out among the provinces of China. The army came through the village conscripting all the young men, but because his son was so badly injured, he did not have to go.

The grass won’t grow, the donkeys get out, the chickens won’t go in, the relationship is in trouble, the bank account is low, the virus mutates, my life hasn’t turned out like I expected, people won’t do what I want! Bad luck, good luck, who can say?

A frightened, anxious, poor, unwed teenager is pregnant. Bad luck, good luck, who can say?

Let’s wait and see.