In the Advent season of waiting you may enjoy The Meaning Is in the Waiting by Paula Gooder. Simon Gates recommended the book in the morning services on Advent Sunday.

Simon adds, “Paula is a theologian who writes in an easy approachable style and provides material for a daily or weekly reflections on the frustrations and joys of waiting by looking at various Biblical characters. She provides fresh insights into familiar characters and helps us enter the season of Advent as we wait for the coming of Christ.”

From the book’s cover: This is the first in a series of books commissioned in consultation with John Sentamu. It can be described as “The Archbishop of York’s Advent book”. Its theme is overtly an Advent one, yet subsequent books will range over other biblical and seasonal topics. Paula Gooder provides a profoundly biblical guide to the season of Advent and we explore its central theme of waiting (something we are not good at in our modern culture) in the company of the biblical characters who feature prominently in the lectionary readings for the season: Abraham and Sarah who waited for a child, Isaiah and the prophets who waited for judgement and redemption, John the Baptist whose role was to wait in the wilderness until the prophecies he foretold were realised, Mary whose waiting began in pregnancy and continued as she stood at the foot of the cross. Arranged for daily reading, this offers an exquisite meditation on the spirituality of waiting – the active doing of nothing – as a way of enhancing our lives and bringing us closer to God.

Dr Paula Gooder is an honorary lecturer at the University of Birmingham, Canon Theologian at Birmingham Cathedral, a Reader in the Church of England and a member of General Synod.