A man was telling me recently about a new programme he'd bought for his computer. It had taken him quite some time to get the thing to work and in frustration he'd gone downstairs to make himself a cup of tea. He'd filled a cup with hot water and had put it in the microwave only to grow more frustrated at having to wait two minutes for the water to boil. Thankfully before he exploded in a rage he'd managed to see the funny side. Life he'd decided had certainly changed since he was a boy: "when I was a lad': he told me, "we actually lived on a farm and we certainly didn't have microwaves or computers. If I 'd wanted a cup of tea I had to go out to the yard and pump the water up from a well, bring it back, put it on a wood-burning stove and wait half an hour before I could have my tea, and there I was the other day getting frustrated at having to wait two minutes to get my tea and have my computer do what I wanted it to do. "

His experience is one to think about as we move into the second week of Advent. Waiting is not our strong point is it? Many people today equate waiting with waste, a waste of time. In a land where we're told time is money, we don't want to wait. So we build Concordes and Eurostar, drink instant coffee and tea, fax our messages, drive with our portable phones and eat fast foods at fast speeds. If life asks us to wait we get nervous - and guilty. We stamp our feet and fume that we should be doing something.