Deliberate Calm
Waiting is a spiritual discipline that we cannot conjure for ourselves. Waiting is enforced on us, against our will. If one is happy to wait, then the waiting does not bear the weight of discipline, because it causes no pain. Waiting is painful if one is not willing to wait, but must, in order to realize the fruit of the dream.
Waiting may provoke paralysis or panic without increasing measures of discipline. Productive waiting requires trust. Without trust, waiting is torture. Trusting the Lord Who Provides infuses the season of waiting with a measure of meaning, of learning and of hope. Without trust in the Lord Who Provides, waiting tumps competence over and confuses clear thinking and fair loving.
Constant anticipation is exhausting. Waiting in trust may require deep breaths and plenty of caffeine, but surely the season of waiting in trust is a blessed gift itself.
Waiting may provoke paralysis or panic without increasing measures of discipline. Productive waiting requires trust. Without trust, waiting is torture. Trusting the Lord Who Provides infuses the season of waiting with a measure of meaning, of learning and of hope. Without trust in the Lord Who Provides, waiting tumps competence over and confuses clear thinking and fair loving.
Constant anticipation is exhausting. Waiting in trust may require deep breaths and plenty of caffeine, but surely the season of waiting in trust is a blessed gift itself.
posted by JRB at 9:06 AM
7 Comments:
“There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all.
There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning?
There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed; when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.”
From No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, New York, 1955. Page 260.
You sounded like a true contemplative there. It warms my heart to read it. I am thankful for you, your brotherhood, and the friendship that we share in the Fellaship.
As a hermit, I am surprised that you are trying to expedite the season of waiting. You know that the season of waiting it bound only by the time frame of God. The path to pinnacle of the Mount of Carmel is long and arduous; dark nights of the soul cannot be rushed; and the taking our seat at the spiritual feast only comes when we have waited faithfully for the invitation of God to come.
Of course, the reality is that I too am anxious to hear about the end of the waiting. So, forget all that stuff I wrote above. WAIT IS THE END OF YOUR WAITING?
More waiting. Actually, we only now, even today, are in the estimated moment of resolution. This has been dead week, so we had hoped that regular business may have been accelerated. Since yesterday, we're in the "any minute now" phase. All is well.
In a while, I'll divulge some more details, but as we keep score, we're still cautiously optimistic, the hallmark of our lives for last two or three months.
Mags would make a great hermit, if he could only play soccer with and the Lord (and bring the Mrs. along with the grill).
Sometimes I still crave the life.
When I retire some day, I want to take my wife and start a retreat center /quasi-monastic community that could be palatable to CoC'ers (while obviously tapping into the MUCH larger world of Christian spirituality.)
“All Christian life is meant to be at the same time profoundly contemplative and rich in active work… It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives. In doing this, we act as co-workers with God. We take our place in the great work of mankind, since in effect the creation of our own destiny, in God, is impossible in pure isolation. Each one of us works out his own destiny in inseparable union with all those others with whom God has willed us to live. We share with one another the creative work of living in the world. And it is through our struggle with material reality, with nature, that we help one another create at the same time our own destiny and a new world for our descendants.”
From Love and Living, by Thomas Merton, p. 177.
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