Advent’s "Quiet Alert"

Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash

I learned something recently about newborns. After delivery, after the shock of being thrust from the warmth of the womb, babies reach a stage where they spend about an hour in what doctors call “quiet alert.”

I love that phrase: Quiet alert.

“Though they can only focus their vision … eight to twelve inches away,” writes Andy Crouch, “their eyes are wide open.”

They are watching. They are wired to search for a pair of eyes, to scan for a face. And when they see it, especially one that returns the gaze, says Crouch, they glue their eyes to it, “having found what they were most urgently looking for.”

When we’re still for a moment in our sometimes frantic, fearful lives, we can begin to imagine how we could have had that kind of attentiveness.

Advent is a great time to cultivate such a state, to reflect on how we might recapture a baby’s resolve to stay on the lookout for a loving gaze. This season reminds us to open our eyes and to watch. We look for God who in Christ turns his face our way. We stay open to the coming of one who can answer all our fears, a God who notices and knows us in our tears. Who can see us and our predicaments. Who tries to catch our attention. This is a God who can help us amid our distracted worrying.

I’m wanting to stay on the lookout for his kind face, quietly alert for glimpses found in the scenes of daily life, wherever I am, whatever I face.