The Port William township is a fictional place in Kentucky created in the mind of writer Wendell Berry. The stories that make up Port William begin in the second half of the 19th century and flow for about one hundred years through the characters and families who inhabit that farming community. I’ve just re-read my favorite (so far) of the books that make up the Port William novels, Jayber Crow, and I’m planning on reading (re-reading some) all of Berry’s Port William novels over the next couple of months. Berry’s imagined community portrays a world that is different from the world in which we live. In the span of time and space that separate us from Port William, much has changed. Reading about the Coulters and the Catletts and the Keiths and the Feltners one quickly notices their goodness, their integrity, their honesty, their work-ethic, and their decency. They are committed people: committed to their families, their community, their church, their way of life, their farming. They are committed to each other, and they’re committed to their land. They are not perfect people, but there is something in my heart that makes me want to mirror their goodness when I read about them.
In addition to all of this, they are patient people.
They wait for the rain to come, they wait for the seasons to change, they wait for the ground to dry so they may plow the fields. Many do not have cars, so they wait for a ride to go to the next town to shop. They wait for their weekly favorite radio show. They wait for the lambing of the sheep and the calving of the cows. They wait before they speak, and they wait for the lengthening of the days. They are patient people. Their lives are slow and measured. In that different time and place, they are not in a hurry.
Our world is not like Port William. Our world, with its technology, has eliminated our need to wait for most things. We are “immediate” people, we want things to happen on our schedule, exactly when we want it, and that we should not have to wait for anything.
Our world has already jumped to Christmas. There was no waiting, no patience, the culture simply jumped to the holiday full force. But if Christmas means the Coming of the Holy One, of God with Us, we people of faith know that God does not work on our immediate schedule. God rarely comes when we’re expecting Him, more often than not God moves in ways that require us to practice patience and faith. God works on God’s schedule, and for us that means waiting with attentive hearts.
This Sunday we begin the season of Advent. For us Baptists we begin catching a foretaste of Christmas during the Advent season, but as we slowly light each candle of the Advent Wreath we are reminded that for ages God’s people waited for the coming Messiah. This also means that we often have to wait for God.
I could readily name several things for which I’m waiting on God. Things that I continue to pray about and carry before God, and God has not yet come for me in these places. Sometimes it would be easy to give up, to despair, and to try to take matters in my own hands. But I know that for ages and ages God’s people have waited, and even though they didn’t know when it would happen, God came.
These Advent Sundays are as important for me this year as they ever have been, and I know that for many in our May Memorial family there are important for them too.
Be patient, pray, cry out, keep watch, be alert, for God will come.