DEAR FRIENDS,
As we Stay/Shelter-in-Place, we are being told that by staying home we are doing that which is most important and supportive for our community, for our health, the health of our loved ones and for the health and well being of the world. Waiting at home, while a gift to many of us (especially for those of us who may be closeted introverts) - a gift also to those of us who are blessed to have - at least some of - our family at home with us. Yet I have heard from many of you who want to be doing something. We are finding being is hard. Well, that is where we hope to support you with mindfulness. To support you in your being.
To comfort you in your waiting. I will first turn to renowned theologian and author, Henri Nouwen as he shares his thoughts about waiting. Henri Nouwen lives on in his writing - including the following written in 1995; I find so relevant today.
Waiting is not a very popular attitude. Waiting is not something that people think about with great sympathy. In fact, most people consider waiting a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, “Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don’t just sit there and wait!” For many people, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go. And people do not like such a place. They want to get out of it by doing something...
In our particular historical situation, waiting is even more difficult because we are so fearful. One of the most pervasive emotions in the atmosphere around us is fear. People are afraid – afraid of inner feelings, afraid of other people, and also afraid of the future. Fearful people have a hard time waiting, because when we are afraid we want to get away from where we are. The more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes. That is why waiting is such an unpopular attitude for many people.
What is the nature of waiting? What is the practice of waiting?
Waiting, as we see it, in the people on the first pages of the gospel is waiting with a sense of promise.
People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started
to grow. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more.
Waiting is also active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late. You cannot do anything about it, so you have to sit there and just wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when somebody says, “Just wait.”
But there is none of this passivity in Scripture.
Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. That’s the secret. The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening. A waiting person is a patient person. The word “patience” means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there.
But there is more. Waiting is open-ended. Open-ended waiting is hard for us because we tend to wait for something very concrete, for something that we wish to have. Much of our waiting is filled with wishes: “[I wish this Coronavirus would end, I wish I had a job],I wish that the weather would be better. I wish that the pain would go.” For this reason, a lot of our waiting is not open-ended. Instead, our waiting is a way of controlling the future. We want to future to go in a very specific direction, and if this does not happen we are disappointed and can even slip into despair.
To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life.
Simone Weil, a Jewish writer, said, “Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.”
From Henri Nouwen, The Path of Waiting, Crossroad, New York. 1995.
Judson Brewer, Eat. Right. Now, mobile App, 2017
Suggested Practice:
Henri Nouwen affirms that waiting is difficult. As we wait at home for our situation to be different than what it is... as we fear for loved ones on the front lines and running on adrenaline without much sleep...We want to wait actively. We can be with all the feelings and emotions that arise. Just hold them in a sacred space. I suggest a Lovingkindness Practice this week. There is a link to Jack Kornfield’s guided meditation. I hope you experience peace that a heart open to a being greater than yourself, yourself, your loved ones and others may bring.
Henri Nouwen says that waiting is active - so we return to what may I do? For that I turn to Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg. Jack will guide you in Lovingkindness practice or “metta practice”.
Meditation on Lovingkindness Jack Kornfield
Suggested Articles:
What to Do When you are Paralyzed by Overwhelm?Sharon Salzberg
For those of you experiencing a week of many emotions related to the holidays, know that you are not alone. My hopes for a joyful holiday time whenever that is for you.
In gratitude,
Laurie
To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is trusting that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. it is giving up our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us according to God’s love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, actively expecting that new things will happen to us new things that are far beyond our imagination or prediction. That, indeed is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.
— Henri Nouwen