Waiting and Carving Spaces

The second Sunday of Advent comes bitterly cold.

Still. Silent. Frozen. As if the entire world is waiting.

The fifth graders come in slow and quiet. Only three of them this morning, the rest hiding away from temperatures that no one here knows how to deal with.

Tired after a full week of school, we manage to collectively complete an entire verse of "Angels We Have Heard on High" to the tune of "Hark the Herald" before the music leader manages to stop the momentum.

But, we tuck into our small group spot under the stairs and draw quietly. Talk about Song of Solomon and Isaiah's coal. Talk about how God purifies and how every poem may indeed be about God. Add to our "Because of Jesus" pages and listen. Listen to spoken word. Listen to "Overcomer" and sing along.

Because, they know this now.

They know that the things that we do here tie in to the things that they do and hear throughout their week. They know that we listen and we watch and we find videos that connect.

This is how we make this space theirs.

There are a thousand other things that we could do. But, like always, there isn't time to fit them all in. Not enough space in an hour and twenty minutes to cram in all of the words and thoughts and life that ought to be shoved into this box that we call church.

(I am mildly convinced that heaven will be one long Sunday, where we have all the time that we could ever want.)

So, we fit as much as we can, and we call it good. This messy thing that is spilling out over all of the edges and defying our best efforts to scoop it back up.

Because, they aren't the only ones who are tired this morning.

Tired and close.

Close enough to spin circles within circles as they weave conversation around us like a web. Sixth, seventh, eighth graders. Freshmen who still come over here to hang out. Words that continue even when one of us is in the octagon and the other is not.

Kids who get me out, just so that I can go and grab a bandaid for someone else.

A game that separates us by grade and gender, but seventh graders who materialize afterwards with the ease of long practice.

Complaints about "sexist" gym teachers and constant play with the simplest of apps on my phone. Mischievous glances during music and constant comments during the lesson from the one who has once again glued himself as close to my side as he can possibly get.

We talk about racism and colonialism, about politics and human nature and the scope of history - and about girls and mad libs and the fact that my phone keeps vibrating in his pocket. 

Another leader tried to be playful and ended up dropping him, and there is confusion in his voice as he tells me the story, rubbing the sore spot on his head, crowding a little closer, capturing my attention the way that they have always done when their worlds are sideways.

Because, it's Advent.

When my quiet ones spill out words and my goofy ones go quiet, withdraw a little, waiting.

When we're messy and raw, honest and beautiful, and I could ignore the schedule all morning and still not quite get to the bottom of it, not solve the things that have them twisted up in worried, tired knots.

When I can feel them carving time out of a Sunday morning, claiming chunks of it as their own.

Like the kid who asks if I'll take him and some friends to the storage room where we spent the coldest of his elementary school Sundays. Notices instantly that I am wearing shoes instead of flip flops. Sits apart for the first time in several weeks but carefully, still catching my eye when he is talking and knows that I am about to shush him.

Gathers up his friends after service and follows me to the "secret room." Not because he doesn't know the way or forgot the passcode or can't find the lights.

He knows all of those things.

But, because this is his time, his space, his constant at an age where everything feels like it is changing. 

Because we can laugh and hide and tell stories as we remember. Because we can jump around corners at a friend and watch his eyes light up as he tells his brother about sword fights and hide and seek. Because, for a thousand reasons uniquely his, this is what it looks like, for today, to jump in and drown ourselves in grace.

This is what it looks like to wait together for a Messiah.