Waiting in-between

Below is the poem Tom Llewellyn wrote and shared as part of our Christmas Eve worship

Waiting in-between

by Tom Llewellyn

Jesus came once already without

any nonsense. He came the way babies

always come, with labor pains

and amniotic fluid and um-

bilical cords, to teach us the clearest

of lessons: that miracles sound like crying

babies.

 

But still we wait for God to come back

at the fifty yard line of the Super

Bowl. We long for hubbub, for fanfare,

for a little nonsense. No crying babies,

thank you very much. A king, if you please.

And while we wait for angels to block out

the stars with their spread wings, we forget

to tilt our heads back and see the stars

themselves. Orion is up there right now,

twinkling behind the clouds. We wait

for God to speak His secrets out loud

instead of listening to the sound

the Nisqually River makes when the spring

sun melts the glacier ice. We wait

for wise men to tell us the how and the why

while a brown-haired five-year-old is sliding

down the entryway stairs on a cardboard

box. We fall and skin a knee.

Two weeks later, new skin grows back

all on its own, while we wait for the lame

beggar to walk again, because

then we would believe.

 

Miracles would make the waiting easier.

Would it help if food grew on trees?

Would it help if broken bones

stitched themselves back together?

Would it help if we could harness

the power of lightning with the flick of a switch?

 

The miracles somehow cease to amaze us

when they occur every Tuesday,

when apples fill our bellies, When

the filaments glow inside a Sylvania light bulb.

 

We wait.

We wait for God to come in glory

while dew covers a spider web

and shines like diamonds.