Waiting
How much our lives do we spend just waiting? On the highway, in a traffic jam; waiting to see the doctor or for a report on our latest examination; waiting to be picked up or for a bus or taxi to take us where we want to go; standing in line to check out our groceries or to buy our stamps in the post office; fidgeting until we are served in a restaurant—everyone can add to this list.
Most often, we simply consider waiting to be down time, time that is wasted when we could be doing something more useful or more enjoyable. The other day, after what seemed to be an interminable time of waiting, I asked myself whether I could offer a more useful view.
Several conclusions came to mind—I call them a “reflective approach to waiting” or even a “spirituality of waiting.”
First of all, waiting reveals to me that my life is a network of dependencies. I am not fully in control of my life, because I am a dependent person—on other drivers on the highway, on the doctor, on the bus driver and the grocery clerk and the waitstaff. I’m not the self-reliant “Marlboro Man.” I live in relationships, and I’m dependent on a network of other people.
Waiting tells me that my life is not a static thing, but rather a dynamic process. I am on a journey to someplace else, to a new situation. Every waiting is a transition. As a buffer between our past and our future, waiting is actually a blessing—even though we may not recognize this in the moment. But at those times when change comes instantaneously, without a buffer space, we are often traumatized by the sudden transition.
In the waiting period, we can sort out the possibilities, both the positive and the negative, and imagine our alternative futures.
In other words, there is a lot more to waiting than “down time.” In fact, an entire world of meaning is embedded there—and that is my spirituality of waiting.
(c) Phil Hefner 16 October
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