The following is a post I wrote for the Advent reflection group I’ve been running for the past few years on WhatsApp. One post a day; no replies allowed. All signal, no noise.
A few weeks ago H & I went to see Waiting for Godot, with Lucian Msamati and Ben Whishaw in the lead roles. It’s a great production, if you’re in London and get a chance to see it.
Part of the central speech that roots the play:
“What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer.
Yes, in the immense confusion, one thing alone is clear: we are waiting…”
But… I have been wondering… what are we waiting for? This is the ratchet of tension that Beckett, through the absurdity, keeps tightening. A tension that, in late 2024, feels so… familiar.
As Vladimir suddenly exclaims, breaking through the hopeless repetition of the dialogue: what are we doing here?! Very much relate, Vlad.
And the answer is, for those two broken men stuck in time, for us as we start another Advent, we are waiting… waiting for the invisible to make their much longed-for entrance. We are waiting for the wait to end… for the new to arrive, infant-small perhaps, a seed of hope.
But these words – what are we waiting for? – are not just a question. They can also be spoken as a challenge – what are we waiting for!
With this emphasis, the words are a call to action-in-the-waiting, even as Godot does not come, or perhaps because he does not…
As Vladimir calls in the same speech:
“Let us do something, while we have the chance! To all humankind, they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all humankind is us, whether we like it or not.”
All humankind. All us. The cries for help still ringing, God[ot] still not arrived, but the chance to act still in our hands…
One of my favourite lines in the play:
“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.”
The sewn-shaped realities we inhabit, deployed as excuses for our agency. For foot-work.
What are we waiting for?
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