Who is in a long, hard wait?
For three days we received, and last night we celebrated. Now come three days of giving hope, one currency at a time, starting with time.
Luke tells this one. It's the Sunday after Jesus was executed, and two of his followers are walking from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus, "about seven miles" away. They're going over everything that happened that week, the way people do after a funeral.
A stranger falls into step with them. It's Jesus, Luke says, though "they were kept from recognizing him." He asks, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" They stop in the road, their faces downcast. One of them, Cleopas, can't believe anyone could have missed the news. They tell the stranger about Jesus, about the crucifixion, and then they say the saddest line in the story: "but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel."
We had hoped. Their hope has slipped into the past tense.
The stranger doesn't rush them. He walks with them the rest of the way, and as they go, he takes them back through the ancient writings of their own people, from Moses through the prophets, and shows them how their story might not be over. When they reach Emmaus, he acts as if he's going on, but they urge him, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." At the table he takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and hands it to them. In that moment they recognize him, and then he's gone.
They look at each other and say, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?" Then they get up at once and walk the seven miles back to Jerusalem.
The first thing Jesus gives those two friends is his time. Before he explains anything, he walks beside them and asks what they're talking about, and he lets them tell it their way. The road takes most of an afternoon, and he stays for dinner.
On Day 1 we saw that hope is a want that walks, and that sometimes the walking is waiting. Long waits wear people down. A person who has been waiting on a diagnosis, a job, a child coming home, or a marriage coming back together may still want the good thing but have stopped believing it will come. "We had hoped" is how that sounds out loud.
At that point, company usually helps more than advice. An hour on someone's couch, a walk around the block, or a long phone call tells a tired person they aren't waiting alone. Walking a stretch of the wait with someone makes it lighter, even when nothing about it gets fixed.
Today, walk with one person in a long wait.
Choose one person in a long wait. If your household made a plan on December 11, use the Time line from it.
Give them a real block of time: a visit, a shared meal, or a long call. Thirty minutes is a good start.
Put your phone away.
Ask what they're hoping for, and listen to the whole answer. Skip the fixing unless they ask for it.
Kids' story: read "The Slow Way Home" from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods together.
Time: whatever the visit needs.
With kids: ask, "Is anyone we know waiting for something hard?" A child can draw a picture to bring along, or choose the game or snack for the visit.
Mixed beliefs: Luke says the stranger was Jesus after his death. Hold that however you hold it. What he did first is the part to copy: he walked with them.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, the friends rode the Tail Train up Lookout Ledge in the dark and saw little lights glowing all over the woods, everywhere except the very top of Everest’s cliff. Today is the day they carry the lantern up.
Have you ever tried really hard for something, and it didn’t work out yet? Let’s go see what happens on the mountain.
The morning was clear and cold, and the wind was already blowing. It whistled over the snow, fweeeeee, and picked up little sparkles of it and carried them across Sunny Square like glitter.
Mr. Moose stood under the Wishing Tree with his sack on his back. Daddy Moose reached up, unhooked the little squash lantern from its branch, and held it out.
“Careful with it,” said Daddy Moose.
“I will,” said Mr. Moose, and he took the handle gently in his mouth.
Mr. Monkey, Bruno, Ricky and Hazel went too. Up the littlest trail, past Mama Hedgehog’s snow lantern. Through the bear-sandwich rocks.
Up the gray wall, holding on to Bruno’s rope, one ledge at a time, with Bruno carrying the lantern this time so Mr. Moose could use his mouth to hold the rope. Bruno held the lantern out in front of him so carefully, and walked so gently, that he went up the whole wall on his tiptoes.
“I’m being careful,” whispered Bruno, on tiptoe.
“Haw haw haw,” he whispered, also on tiptoe.
Past the little pine, a long, bare ridge led up toward the cliff. There were no trees up here. Just rock and snow and sky. And wind. Mr. Monkey pulled his yellow hat down tight over both ears.
The wind hit Mr. Moose’s antlers and pushed. His antlers were wide, like two big hands, and the wind filled them up like sails. He leaned forward. The wind pushed harder. And Mr. Moose went sliding backward across the snow, slowly, on all four hooves, without even moving his legs.
“Mr. Monkey,” he called. “I’m going the wrong way!”
“You’re a sailboat!” said Mr. Monkey. “Hee hee hee!”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose, still sliding, until he bumped gently into Bruno, who stopped him like a big furry wall.
So Mr. Moose turned sideways, so the wind would go through his antlers instead of filling them, and they kept climbing.
Ricky had his list out. Then a gust caught it, and the whole long piece of bark flew straight up into the air and flapped over their heads, with Ricky hanging on to the bottom end.
“My list is a kite!” shouted Ricky.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey, and he and Bruno grabbed Ricky’s tail and pulled him and his kite back down.
Most of the list was crossed off now. “What if the wind blows the candle out?” Ricky read.
“Don’t worry,” said Mr. Monkey. “The squash keeps the wind off.”
And for a long time, it did. They climbed and climbed. The ridge got steeper. The air got colder. The top of Everest’s cliff got closer, and closer, until Mr. Moose could see the snow on its very edge.
Then the wind came around the side of the ridge, all at once, harder than before. WHOOOOOSH. It went right through the little leaf-shaped holes in the squash.
The candle flickered. It bent sideways. It came back. It flickered again.
And it went out.
Everybody stood very still and looked at the lantern. It was just a squash now. A cold, dark squash with holes in it, and a little curl of smoke.
“Can we light it again?” asked Hazel.
Ricky looked around. There was nothing up here to make a fire. No dry twigs. No coals. Just snow and rock and wind. And the sun was already going down toward the hills.
“We have to go back,” said Ricky quietly. “Before it gets dark.”
Mr. Moose looked up at the top of the cliff. It was so close. He could almost count the stones on it. He looked at it for a long time.
Then he turned around.
They climbed back down the ridge, and down the rope, and down the littlest trail. And when they got to the bottom, everybody was cold and tired and hungry, and Bruno and Hazel and Ricky hurried on ahead toward home, toward the warm fires and the hot suppers.
Mr. Moose walked very slowly. His head was low. He carried the dark squash lantern in his mouth, and he didn’t say anything at all.
Mr. Monkey was cold. His fingers were cold. His toes were cold. The tip of his tail was so cold it felt like an icicle. He could see the treehouse lights in the distance, and he knew Mama Monkey would have cocoa. He wanted to run. His legs wanted to run all by themselves.
But he looked at Mr. Moose, walking so slowly, so quietly, with his head down. And he didn’t want Mr. Moose to walk home alone.
So he didn’t run. He walked slowly too, right beside Mr. Moose, at moose speed, one slow step and then another.
For a long time, they didn’t talk. The snow went krrunch, krrunch under their feet. The sky turned orange, and then pink, and then purple.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Mr. Monkey finally.
Mr. Moose set the lantern down in the snow. “I had hoped,” he said, “that we’d get there today.”
“Me too,” said Mr. Monkey.
“I practiced on the little hill,” said Mr. Moose. “And we found the littlest trail. And you climbed the wall. And we got so close. I could see the snow on the top. And then the light went out.” He looked at the dark squash. “Maybe it’s too far. Maybe it’s just too high for a moose.”
Mr. Monkey wanted to say something to fix it. He wanted to say “We’ll go tomorrow!” or “It’ll be easy next time!” But he didn’t know if it would be easy. He didn’t know anything about next time. So he didn’t say any of that.
He just stayed. He sat down in the snow next to Mr. Moose and leaned against his leg, so Mr. Moose would know he was there. And he let Mr. Moose tell it, all of it, the wind and the sailboat and the candle bending over and going out, and he listened to the whole thing, all the way to the end.
Mama Monkey called from the treehouse. “Mr. Monkey! Supper!”
“In a minute, Mama!” he called back. And he stayed.
When Mr. Moose was done telling it, he was still sad. But it was a little less heavy. He picked up the lantern, and they walked the rest of the way together, slowly, all the way to the Moose home.
The window was glowing gold. Daddy Moose was standing in the doorway.
He didn’t ask if they made it. He looked at the dark squash lantern, and he looked at Mr. Moose’s low head, and he knew.
“Come here,” said Daddy Moose.
He took the squash lantern inside, to the table in the middle of the Moose home, where the fat gold candle was still burning. The light they’d first made from Bruno’s wax, kept going one candle after another.
The first light the lantern had ever given away. Daddy Moose put a new candle in the squash, and he lit it from the table candle, and handed it back.
The leaf-shaped lights came back on, all over the walls.
Mr. Moose looked at it. “It’s lit again,” he whispered.
“It’s lit again,” said Daddy Moose.
Mr. Monkey finally went home for supper. His cocoa was a little cold, but he didn’t mind at all.
“What a day,” said Mr. Moose to himself that night, in his bed, with the squash lantern glowing on the windowsill. “Bruno carried the lantern on his tiptoes. The wind made me a sailboat.
We got so close I could see the snow on the top of the cliff. Then the light went out, and we had to turn around. And Mr. Monkey walked home with me the slow way, the whole way.”
And far across Sunny Square, from the treehouse window, came a little whistle. And Mr. Moose hummed back. And together, across the snow, they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And on the windowsill of the Moose home, the little squash lantern glowed again, warm and gold, pointing its leaf-shaped lights up toward the dark cliff.