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The first time I attended a Unitarian Universalist church for worship, I was greeted by an incredible sight: 75 percent of the people in the congregation were wearing pink triangles on their name tags. I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought I’d died and gone to some sort of queer heaven. Read more →

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By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part—the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?

Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven’t you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything, makes everything
beautiful, without exception?

This poem appears Lynn Ungar’s new book of poetry Bread and Other Miracles, which is available at www.lynnungar.com.

This year has helped me appreciate the value of waiting. As I spent each day and night worrying about my wife and her safety, I eagerly anticipated the day that we would be reunited. It was as if, in my mind, from that moment forward all would be right with the world. To be honest, I didn’t plan much past that day. I couldn’t think that far into the future.

In the midst of all the waiting of this year, I have found the importance of the present.
We are so set on what is coming next, and how to prepare for it, that we don’t take a moment to stop and look around. For me, that is what waiting is about: staying present.

So I took things week by week; day by day; moment by moment. There was really not another option. If I looked at the whole picture, it was too overwhelming, and far too long until she would be safe again. In my waiting for the future, I learned to stay in the present moment. It was in those moments that I found solace and peace, and the ability to keep my hope.

And the day came, when we were reunited! She is safely home from her deployment, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. But the reality is that there is still more to wait for. We wait to see what will happen next with her career and with mine. We wait to see how we will continue to adjust to being back together again, how she will adjust back to work, and how work will adjust back to her. We wait for her fellow service members to return home.

Cesare Pavese once said, “we do not remember days, we remember moments.” This quote was on a magnet I sent to my wife while she was deployed. And I have found this sentiment to be true. What do I think of in the 200 days we were apart? I remember laughing with her on Skype as we each ate a stale fortune cookie from our rehearsal dinner, to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. I remember her describing what it felt like to feel rain on her skin for the first time in months. I remember the moments when I would awake to a message from her in the middle of the night, and I knew that she was safe after worrying about attacks.

And now that she is home, there are still moments like those. But now I wake up to her sleeping soundly, or walk with our dogs in the snow. I have grown to live for those moments, and to find such richness in them. In this season of Advent, and of waiting and anticipation, I find comfort in moments like these. My hope for us all, is that we will stop and savor the present moment, and to see the beauty in it.

Blessed be.

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For most people waiting takes place in a doctor’s office, a teller’s line at the local bank, or in a drive-thru anticipating food. For others, maybe it’s waiting for your boyfriend to “pop the question” or for your child to come running out of school and greet you with a smile and a hug as the bell rings.

Whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours, waiting is normally over quickly and painlessly, and life goes on.

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In a dark time the eye begins to see. —Theodore Roethke

Solstice celebrations capture the moment when the darkness gives way to the light. For thousands of years, people have tried to hold onto that moment of joy and certainty.

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