Anticipation

Expectant Hope
Anticipation
Yearning
Already but not yet
Waiting
Wanting
Longing for
Advent

Eager expectation
Renewal
A new life
Beginning
New year
Joyful concern
Moving
Beating
Inward dwelling

Awaiting

Sometimes there is no choice but to wait.  Nothing can be rushed and any earlier would be too soon.  This season of Advent, like every other but unlike any other, swirls on in sursum blue.

A color best compared to the deep blue of the sky with the sharp glimmers of the stars--better if the night is cold and crisp and the air unmarred by lights of our making.

So, here we are...tapping our fingers and dancing about on inpatient feet.

Are we there yet?  Not yet.  Still waiting.  But in the waiting we look upwards and outwards to the stars.  They glimmer with promise and perfection.

And they smolder from within, like the breath and the heart.

Such beauty, it cannot be contained or held.  And, despite its perfection it is incomplete.

And arms waiting, empty, and the donkey plods on towards Bethlehem and we watch its torturously slow journey.  But to birth on the wayside would be too hard and the manger awaits ahead.

New life.  Such life.  Blessed life.

Hope.