The Church of England has launched an online advent calendar on the theme of waiting, with daily reflections from Archbishops Rowan Williams and John Sentamu, Bishop Stephen Cottrell and others. As Williams explains in his introductory video:
“We’re not a culture that’s very used to waiting. ‘Take waiting out of wanting’ – that’s a slogan that was very popular some decades ago – and it still governs a great deal of the way we behave. We’d quite like to have things when we decide we want them. And so waiting seems negative, waiting seems perhaps passive, unexciting, the boring bit before we get to the exciting bit.”
Instead, we need to rediscover the benefits of waiting, says Bishop Stephen Cottrell:
“We hope the website reminds people that waiting is not a waste of time but, as we see in nature, a time of change, growth and transformation. Advent is the season in which the church celebrates waiting as an essential part of human experience – it is much more than the countdown to Christmas or the season of shopping.”
- To see todays’ video, go to www.whyarewewaiting.com
- If you haven’t signed up for one of our Advent Journeys yet, find out more about them here.