Second Sunday of Advent – 2020
Frog was in his garden. Toad came walking by, “What a fine garden you have, Frog,” he said. “Yes,” said Frog. “it is very nice, but it was hard work.” “I wish I had a garden,” said Toad. “Here are some flower seeds. Plant them in the ground,” said Frog, “and soon you will have a garden.” “How soon?” asked Toad, “Quite soon,” said Frog. Toad ran home. He planted the flower seeds. “Now seeds,” said Toad, “start growing.” Toad walked up and down a few times. The seeds did not start to grow. Toad put his head close to the ground and said loudly, “Now seeds, start growing!” Toad looked at the ground again. The seeds did not start to grow. Toad put his head very close to the ground and shouted, “Now seeds, start growing!” Frog came running up the path, “What is all the noise?” he asked. My seeds will not grow, “said Toad. “You are shouting too much,” said Frog. “These poor seeds are afraid to grow.” “My seeds are afraid to grow?” asked Toad. “Of course,” said Frog. “Leave them alone for a few days. Let the sun shine on them, let the rain fall on them. Soon your seeds will start to grow.” That night Toad looked out of his window. “Drat!” said Toad. “My seeds have not started to grow. They must be afraid of the dark.” Toad went out to his garden with some candles. “I will read a story,” said Toad. “Then they will not be afraid.” Toad read a long story to his seeds. All the next day Toad sang songs to his seeds. And all the next day Toad read poems to his seeds. And all the next day Toad played music for his seeds. Toad looked at the ground. The seeds still did not start to grow. “What shall I do?” cried Toad. “These must be the most frightened seeds in the whole world!” Then Toad felt very tired, and he fell asleep. “Toad, Toad, wake up,” said Frog. “Look at your garden!” Toad looked up at his garden. Little green plants were coming up out of the ground. “At last,” shouted Toad, “my seeds have stopped being afraid to grow!” And now you have a nice garden, too” said Frog. “Yes,” said Toad, “but you were right, Frog. It was very hard work.”[1]
It is hard work indeed to simply wait. Like Frog we seek to take control over things, and we bring to them a frenetic effort that forces things to occur. And yet, of course, we realise that there are many things in our life that simply force us to let go, and to simply wait.
We wait for our spouse to understand exactly what we are going through, and to accept our own difference, our own way of approaching issues in life.
We wait for our children to understand what we are seeking to communicate to them and to live into what we most deeply wish for them.
We wait for our friends or members of our family to recognise that the choices that they may be making in their life are not the healthiest ones.
We wait for the difficult situations in our life to resolve in the profound awareness that nothing we can do can really change them.
We wait for the right direction in our life to show itself.
We wait to understand the meaning of an unforgettable painful experience in our life.
We are waiting for this pandemic to be finished, and for our lives to return to normal.
We wait with the one we love as they enter the journey of serious sickness and even death.
We spend a good deal of our life, in fact, waiting – perhaps much more than we might at first realise. Often during the day we are conscious of waiting in a queue at the bank or supermarket, in traffic, for something to come through the post or for an email. All these small moments of waiting, however, are but small reminders of the waiting which we cannot avoid when it comes to the most significant experiences in our life. Indeed, Simone Weil, once wrote we do not find the most precious things in our life by looking for them, but by waiting for them. The more precious something is in our life the more it will demand that we wait. We cannot grab it like Toad tried to in regard to the growth of his garden. We have to let go and wait.
One of the reasons why waiting is so difficult for us, I think, is because waiting hollows us out. Waiting empties us. In our waiting, we realise a certain powerlessness. We do not like the experience of powerlessness, but spiritually, it is a critical one. In the powerlessness of waiting we can like Frog double our efforts in the illusion that everything can be achieved by our own efforts, or in our powerlessness we can give over to something other than ourselves in surrender and trust. This is not a mere abdication of our own responsibility or own capacity to bring about change but rather the profound recognition that we are dependent on a Mystery larger, more embracing, than ourselves in which everything is gathered up and discovers itself with its own unique timing.
There is an unmistakable freedom in this type of surrender and trust. There is also surprise. Because when we live with this surrender born in the midst of our waiting we discover ourselves becoming increasingly receptive in our life. We discover what we are waiting for not in the way that we may have insisted upon, but in other ways beyond what we could have imagined.
John the Baptist appears in our journey towards Christmas as a figure who waits. He waits in the desert, in the place of emptiness and surrender. He waits for his longing to be fulfilled. We too wait for that for which we long most deeply in our hearts and lives, for something which will outstrip our own clumsy efforts and inadequate endeavours. When we enter into that waiting, rather than fight against it, then we might indeed discover, like Toad, that something has happened – yes, even despite ourselves.
But all this is very hard work indeed.
[1] Arnold Lobel, “The Garden,” in Frog and Toad Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 18-30, cited in Megan McKenna, Parables: The arrows of God, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 47-48