Waiting

This is a season of waiting.

Children wait impatiently for Christmas gifts and surprises while adults wait to hear from distant friends in the annual ritual of card exchanges.

Advent calendars and flickering candles count off the days.

Those attuned to Nature's pulse await the turning point of Solstice and our fall back into sunlight.

In our neighborhood, we are waiting for snow to come and blanket the landscape, softening the harsh edges of ice and iron-hard soil. Beneath the earth wait the seeds for Spring's greenery, sleeping through this little ice age, waiting to be born.

Something in my soul resonates to this time of quiet expectation. When I was a Christian, Advent was my favorite time of the liturgical year, with its candlelit meditations and ancient hymns of beseeching.

"Veni, veni Emanuel..."

From centuries past, the plainsong melodies speak of a longing, like sun-starved evergreens turning branches toward the distant southern sun. I feel the hunger in my bones.

"Corde natus ex Parentis..."

Unlike so many people in the world, I expect no savior or prophet. I look not for an external manifestation of infinity in the cold December dawn. I do not know exactly what it is that I await--enlightenment, immanence, completion. I only know it lies inside me, straining outward, just as the hungry earth seeks light.

In the still air of mid-winter, I listen for the next heartbeat of Eternity.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Along Alaska's southern coast, in communities stretching from Cordova to Anchorage, we also wait for word on the missing Lifeguard helicopter. N141LG is still officially overdue--as the bulletin posted on the radio console reminds me.

But the realization is sinking in that the orange-and-blue aircraft and those who were on board her are gone.

Winds in Prince William Sound drive snow and fog before them, making search conditions difficult but the search doggedly continues on land, in the air and on the dark, cold waters.

Among those who wait for word, candles were lit tonight at 5:18 pm, marking the moment of the last contact with the flight. Hope persists but it is as fragile as the flicker of a candle in the wind.