As I waited for a pair of waffles to heat up in my toaster, I was reminded of the saying, "Watched pot never boils." I watched those waffles and waited, and those few moments stretched into an eternity. I got bored. I wanted to turn and do something else. But I'm stubborn, and I knew they'd eventually pop up from the toaster, so I continued to watch. And for a few moments, I let myself notice the waffles in the glowing red toaster.
Taking time to notice is called mindfulness. And mindfulness is the sort of thing that Advent calls for. The market has been ready for us to be ready for Christmas since before Halloween. The market invites us to turn away from the present moment and focus on a million details for the Big Day. Advent invites us to turn our eyes from the glamor of the market and focus on what hasn't happened yet. We are pregnant with light, but that light won't be born before it's ready. Our world is about to change, but we are still in our cocoon. Rather than prematurely breaking free from the cocoon, perhaps Advent calls us to be mindful of it. If we stop turning our attention in a thousand other directions and focus patiently on the here and now, perhaps what we attend to will transform right before our eyes.
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