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Sensible schoolchildren station one of the classmates along the corridor while they are waiting for the teacher to appear. It's a precaution against the teacher arriving unexpectedly. It's only common sense. Christians are common sense people. We don't have exotic and mysterious initiation rites. We don't have secrets that are revealed only to the privileged few. And we don't have to tie ourselves up in yoga knots to say our prayers. The message of Christ is an open book and his instructions are plain common sense. The theme of Advent is, "Stay awake". Christ is going to come back. We don't know when, and it's an obvious precaution to be prepared at any time. How do we "stay awake" and prepare? Common sense tells us that it means neither abandoning the occupations of our working hours, nor does it mean sleepless nights. On the contrary, we prepare by putting our life and our world in order to that we can sleep soundly. "Staying awake" simply means opening our eyes to the truth that we are waiting for Jesus to come back. The pain of waiting is best dealt with like a minor toothache. We allow it to nudge us into activity as the best means of preventing our minds dwelling on it. We keep it in the back of our mind. For if we think about it too much it reduces us to tears and immobility. Like the sensible schoolchild we must keep a look out, but we can't force the weed of the class to do it while we fool around. It's a job we have to do for ourselves. We have to wake up!