Thursday, January 7, 2016

On Waiting

This year I am participating in Spiritual Journey Thursdays, coordinated by Holly at Reading, Teaching, Learning. Today we are all blogging about Holly's OLW for 2016: WAIT.

I have a complicated relationship with waiting. I remember reading a poem once that basically said historically, it's a woman's job to wait -- while the husband goes to war or work or whatever. Why would I want to be THAT woman?

The truth is, I can be terribly impatient and impetuous, and one of the ways I deal with things in my life that I can't process, or feelings I am not ready to feel, is to dive headlong into some task, to chase after some goal, to go, do, move! This has been a valuable coping mechanism for me for many years and has helped me achieve a lot of things.

But. These days I am far less interested in going/doing/moving as I am in just BEING -- being myself, being content, being present. And waiting is a part of all these things. I can wait to check my email, I can wait to respond to an invitation, I can wait and see how I feel instead of planning (obsessing!) about the future. I can sleep on it. I can pause, pray, meditate before I commit or make a decision. All of these tools are available to me and help me know myself better, and to honor that self.

How often in the past have I created my own troubles by NOT waiting?!

And yet, waiting is still a struggle sometimes. It feels so passive, like nothing is happening. What I' m finding is that that moment, of waiting, is exactly the place where faith enters in. And I want to be there to meet it.

Thanks so much, Holly, for opening the discussion!

9 comments:

  1. wait is a four letter word... I need to work on that too. My mind works so fast that sometimes my reasoning cant keep up.

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  2. Perhaps waiting is something we learn. Hoping so. Interesting to look at the moment of waiting and what that means.

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  3. A lovely first post after your OLW. I think there is definitely a connection between waiting, simply being, and delight. You can delight in lots of things, but delighting in who you are takes stillness.

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  4. Irene it's lovely to have you join us! I can certainly relate to the push-pull between doing and waiting you describe. I think the instantaneous possibilities of communication have made us impatient. I love how you connect faith with waiting and being at the crossroads to make the connection.

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  5. Irene, I'm so excited for you to be writing with us in the Spiritual Journey Thursday community! I agree that WAITING has all kinds of complicated implications. Sometimes it gets a bad rap - but you've pointed out the positives perfectly in your BEING paragraph! I love your word, DELIGHT, and look forward to writing about it in February!

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  6. Irene, your contentedness about being your yourself, content and quiet certainly is inspiring to someone like me who does struggle with the waiting period. I love the line that questions how our own internal struggles with the pause button point out that waiting is not an easy task.

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  7. "What I'm finding is that that moment, of waiting, is exactly the place where faith enters in. And I want to be there to meet it." I need to get there, where you are! Thanks for pointing the way...Thank you for your entire reflection. You've expressed the waiting challenge I, too, feel, more peacefully & positively than I ever could have expressed. Thanks for giving voice to all of us who share your spiritual journey! God bless you!

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  8. I know I would be better off a lot of times if I had waited. So hard!

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  9. Interesting...to revisit your post, now two months/eight weeks later (which ones sounds as if more time has past to have implemented what you shared), and ask myself if I have gotten better at implementing the words of wisdom you shared--words of wisdom that resonate with me, yet again! To answer my own question, every once in a while I'm please that I have become more healthily detached from the need for immediate knowing or recognition--but not nearly enough, and certainly not totally. Regardless, that feels like a step toward more waiting; maybe even an important precursor to successful waiting--to be less egotistically involved in the outcome; to feel less need to press for an immediate, favorable outcome. Thanks for inviting a revisit of this posting. ...There's still so much to think through...God bless you!

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