During Advent, Lots of Waiting, But Not Enough Hope

[cbayer]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/07/during-advent-lots-of-waiting-but-not-enough-hope.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+(The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles)


People attend a vigil for Eric Garner near where he died after he was taken into police custody in Staten Island.
Spencer Platt/Getty

Gene Robinson

ADVENT IN AMERICA
12.07.14

Advent—the four-week season that recalls the waiting for a messiah—is a reminder of the vast amount of change we’re waiting for in America.

Three days after my consecration as Bishop of New Hampshire, I received a handwritten note from a woman at the New Hampshire State Prison for Women. She had apparently read about all the controversy surrounding my election as the first openly gay and partnered priest to be elected a bishop in historic Christianity. Her words were, “There’s something in your election that makes me believe that there might be a group of people out there who could love me despite what I’ve done.”

I went to visit her soon thereafter and discovered that she was a young woman, barely out of her teens, who had killed someone, but who had been a forensic psychiatrist. As I talked with her, it occurred to me that my election was about much more than me. Or homosexuality. It was about the hope and longing for redemption and reconciliation that lies somewhere within each of us.

That was the first of many visits to the Women’s Prison. Many of the women there were in jail because they had abusive husbands or boyfriends, and in a moment of desperation made a very bad decision, and had picked up a knife or gun and tried to kill (some succeeded) their abusers. Because of the verbal abuse and death threats coming my way, these women seemed to identify with me. They took me in and helped sustain me in the days that followed. They became some of my greatest champions, though of course, no one was listening. Not to them!

When the season of Advent rolled around, they presented me with a set of beautiful vestments, hand sewn and decorated with cross-stitch crosses. On the underside of these Eucharistic vestments, each signed her name. They told me that Advent was all about waiting and hoping – that they were indeed a community of waiting and hoping. They were waiting for the next visit from their children, for the next parole hearing, for any word from the “outside.” And they were hoping that the ordeal of prison would be bearable for them and for their families, even hoping that the miracle of early release would happen for them. In the meantime, just a lot of waiting and hoping.

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[hedda_foil]

1. Thanks for posting this. Very much worth reading in full.

Beautiful. This struck me the hardest.

It strikes me that America would be a better place if more conversations – whether they are about race, gender, economics, immigration, climate change or other vexing issues that face us – began with the questions, “What do you long for? For what are you waiting? What is your heart’s true desire?” Maybe we could find common cause in our longing for justice regardless of race, fairness in the marketplace and in the courts, and a shot at the American dream for all, not just the few at the top. We of course will disagree about how to make those longings come true, but wouldn’t we be off to a better start if we could first talk about what we actually long for?

[cbayer]

2. You are welcome.

I felt the need for some hope today and this spoke to me.

What do you long for?