I don’t like to be still for very long. New York is the perfect city for me – fast paced, lots of activity. New Yorkers are not known for being still for very long – we have a hard time waiting for the subway, and jaywalk when we can. I’m much better at “doing” than “being.” I tend to think that I have to make things happen. Recently, though, I’ve realized that in all my “doing” I spend more time spinning my wheels than actually getting much accomplished. I have a hard time being fully present. My mind is always racing to the next thing.

This Advent season, I’m trying to be a little less rushed. To say “no” a little more often when it comes to “doing” things and to say “yes” to just being. In order to accomplish this, I’m staking time to prepare in advance a little bit more. Doing things ahead of time isn’t my strongest skill. But as I prepared for worship this coming Sunday, I found a video meditation about hope – this week’s Advent theme. It’s short, but it moves so slowly. As I watched it, I felt my impatience growing. But opening phrase cruelly caught my attention. “Let hope find you.”

I hadn’t ever imagined that hope might find me. That I didn’t have to do a thing, but be open to being found. That maybe all my doing made it difficult for hope to catch up to me, to find me.

I invite you to check out the video and see if it helps you rethink hope. If you’re someone who doesn’t like to sit still, be prepared for the longest 47 seconds of your life. But maybe if you can sit still that long, a bit of hope might find you.

P.S. after I posted this, I realized that the privacy settings on the video won’t allow it to be played on our website. You can still view it, you just have to click on the link. This is yet another test of our patience and our ability to wait. So take a deep breath and click the link.

Advent 2015 – Hope from LEAD on Vimeo.