A Curious Christmas (Part 1)
The Waiting We Don't Choose
This isn’t an Advent devotional.
There are already more of those than stars in our December sky.
This is more like an artists sketchbook – a few ideas, scribbled down and shared. A few pages torn from the middle of a messy, unfinished story. A story about curiosity, incarnation, and cups of tea that go cold while I try to make sense of it all.
I’m calling it A Curious Christmas, not because I have something clever to say,
but because I don’t want to miss what’s odd and holy and human about this season.
Each post will be small. Possibly strange. Probably late.
You can think of them as thoughts from the edge of wonder – not answers, not instructions, just moments noticed, questions asked, truths half-seen in the frost and the song.
Week One: The Waiting We Don’t Choose
Advent is full of planned waiting.
We light candles, mark weeks, open doors on calendars.
But much of life’s waiting isn’t planned.
It happens between appointments, in traffic,
in the ache for news that hasn’t come.
I’ve noticed lately,
how uncomfortable I am with that kind of waiting –
the unchosen kind.
The kind that stretches out
without telling you what it’s for.
And yet,
that’s where most of this story,
the story of Christmas seems to unfold.
Mary waiting.
Joseph wondering.
Shepherds watching the night not for God, but for danger.
All of them caught in the long pause before glory.
Maybe curiosity is what keeps the waiting from turning to despair.
Not “when will this end?” but “what might be being born?”
That’s where I want to begin this Advent –
in the waiting I didn’t sign up for,
trying to listen,
trying to notice.
A small invitation
Before next week’s post, notice one moment of waiting –
in a queue, in a pause, in a breath –
and ask, what’s alive here?
Not what’s next. Just what is.