Waiting
What are you waiting for?
I assume you are waiting for me to say something.
What are you waiting for me to say?
Perhaps we are all waiting for inspiration.
We wait in lots of ways.
I expect a phone call. I wait for it.
I stand in line waiting for a cashier.
I wait while the water boils.
I wait, in traffic, at the red light.
I’m not always patient. The waiting can be a bother.
Can’t she see the light has changed to green?
Waiting can be tedious, challenging.
My loved one is in surgery.
I wait, and wait, and worry.
Nine months of waiting for a child to be born.
Elizabeth and Zacharias, waiting, doubting;
Mary and Joseph, waiting, wondering.
Two years of waiting, or more, for an adoptive child.
I apply to school; for a job. I wait to hear, anxiously.
As concerned members of the human family we wait:
for the hungry to be fed,
for the homeless to be sheltered,
for the ill to receive care.
99% wait.
Is there enough for all?
This is the season of waiting.
“I can’t wait until Christmas.”
You know, all those presents.
Children wait in line to talk with Santa.
Children wait expectantly for Christmas morning.
And, as the light time is shorter each day,
I can’t wait for the Solstice,
for the turning of the season,
for shorter nights, for more sunshine.
On the Christian calendar, this is the Advent season.
Advent: awaiting,
waiting for something momentous, and, in particular,
waiting for the birth of Jesus,
the promise of transforming love.
This awaiting comes from the Jewish tradition,
waiting for the Messiah,
waiting, in the time of exile,
for the savior who will restore the nation Israel.
This is a season of waiting
Perhaps we are all waiting for inspiration.
Inspire, from the Latin meaning “to breathe into.”
Perhaps we await the breath of new life.
When I breathe in I wait for my lungs to be full.
Then I breathe out.
Expiration, from Expire, meaning “to breathe out.”
My lungs contract. I release. I let go.
Expire, ultimately meaning to breathe one’s last breath.
Poignant moments.
Walking through the halls of the assisted living home.
Women and men in wheel chairs, heads nodded.
Waiting, waiting for someone to notice.
Breathing in, breathing out.
We wait, for our next breath.
We wait for our last breath.
Waiting, it’s what we humans do all the time,
even when we are not aware of it,
from our first gasp for air entering the world,
to our last letting go.
We wait, in that oh so slight pause before inhaling,
before exhaling.
In that instant,
that oh so slight pause,
is unconscious connection,
waiting to be experienced and then remembered.
We ask not what are we waiting for, but
“How are we waiting?”
Barbara and I sit in a circle of colleagues.
We are a study group, ten of us from seven congregations.
Our lives are so full, there is always the next thing to do.
We take twenty-seven hours of our lives several times a year.
We listen to one another’s stories,
our congregations’ stories.
We offer support.
There is so little time, we fill it to the brim.
…even in our singing we rush on to the next phrase.
Our colleague David Takahashi-Morris says,
in the Meditation on Breathing song,
remember the silences, the moments in between,
the pauses, the waiting for an instant.
When I breathe in_____
I’ll breathe in peace_____
When I breathe out_____
I’ll breathe out love_____.
If we run right into the next lyric,
wanting to move through the thought,
he says we will miss the experience.
In the silence, in the pause,
in the sacred instant of stillness,
without words to confuse us, it happens.
In the silent waiting
we are at-one with All there is.
In the interval between inhaling and exhaling,
is unconscious connection,
waiting to be experienced and then remembered.
In this instant we may glimpse eternity,
beyond life, beyond death,
and know Being –
(But “Being” or any word is insufficient,
just a pointing toward,
just a circling around,
not yet and maybe never able to express the experience).
We may be so used to the noise all around us,
so wrapped in the multiple tasks demanding our attention,
that this interval, this stillness,
this stopping, this waiting in the time in between,
may feel a little scary.
That’s why we fill the time,
avoid the silence.
In our study group we take turns presenting,
telling core truths in our lives and in Unitarian Universalism.
One colleague speaks his truth, then plays music…
Then, in the not-words we go deeper,
touch inward springs,
feel the connections.
“How did you choose the music?” a colleague asks him.
“In the pause, in the silence, in prayer, the music came to me.”
Like an eagle, soaring, I imagine an instant so in the flow,
riding currents of being, I am held in the mystery.
This instant, this moment between thoughts, just let it be…
I yearn to name it_____Just let it be.
It’s ecstatic, overwhelming, integrating_____just let it be.
It’s all-encompassing, it’s like home_______just let it be.
Wait, and see what happens.
For it is not truly a question of what we are waiting for.
The deep question is how are we waiting.
14th Century Sufi poet Hafiz asks:
What is this precious love and laughter
budding in our hearts?
It is the glorious sound
of a soul waking up!
In the pause, in the silence, in prayer, the music may come to you.
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A word can be like a rain drop: softening, nurturing.
A Love Poem,
words strung together,
each inviting the next to complete the expression of connection,
is like a steady rain.
One drop and then the next and then,
pitter patter,
the flow of emotion is restored.
Then, at the period,
Or maybe it’s an exclamation point!,
We stop.
Take a breath. Pause.
Soak in the silence, like thirsty soil softening.
Love soaks in.
Wait for it to do its mellowing.
Let it be.
The drops seep through the soil of your being,
filtering, moistening,
and, finally, drip dripping into that deep well
that never runs dry.
Sometimes we crazily cross dry deserts in search of it.
Sometimes we doubt that it exists.
But, listen to the wind, to the stories of clouds’ journey,
listen to the sprinkles of rain,
reminding you of the Well’s deep presence inside you.
Once touched by Love
we know its embrace
and can offer its saving poems
to all who need reminding.
This season of waiting, of wanting,
this looking forward, anticipation, expectation
is ripe for disappointment.
Focused on outcomes, on gifts of the future,
waiting with plans for a picture-perfect holiday,
we are bound for disenchantment.
The deep advent question is how are we waiting?
In this tender moment can I draw from the deep well
and offer poems laden with gratitude,
with second chances,
with invitations to adorn our celebrations with appreciation?
My friend, I look into your eyes and see goodness.
I am enriched by your presence.
May your journey be blessed as you are a blessing.
What are we waiting for?
We want love that accepts us,
with all our flaws, all our shortcomings,
our incompleteness.
How are we waiting?
With open arms?
With receptivity,
ready to see beyond the imperfections
of family, of friends,
of the person in front of me in line?
The gift of this season,
this coming around once again reminder,
is the quiet moment in between,
the pause,
the instant of remembering the invitation
to give what we yearn to receive,
to be what we want to see,
to become the love
that heals broken hearts.
May your waiting this season be like never before.
May the moments of upset, of disappointment,
of doubt, of grief
give way,
that gratitude from the deep well within you
may stretch its heart-shaped treasure
up, up, through the rich soil of your being
and offer poems of love to an aching world.
Copyright © 2011, Rev. Bill Hamilton-Holway. All Rights Reserved.
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