WAITING

WAITING

At a superficial level, we experience this in the amount of time we spend waiting at check-out counters, in airports, for buses, for somebody to arrive, etc.

More important is the fact that almost all the time we are waiting for a fuller season for our lives. Rarely do we have what Nouwen calls “a fully pregnant moment”, namely, a moment when we can say to ourselves: “Right now, I don’t want to be any other place, with any other persons, doing anything else, than what I am doing right now!”

From infancy onwards, we are nearly always waiting for something else to happen: As a baby, every time our mother leaves the room we wait anxiously for her to return. As a child, we wait for those special moments of play and celebration – when will Gramma come? When will I get my treat?

This changes somewhat during pre-adolescence. The years between starting school and puberty are perhaps the one time in life when we are more satisfied with the present moment.

Then at puberty, the awakening of sexuality arouses within us a restlessness which makes the rest of our lives one painful exercise in waiting. From that moment onwards, every hormone in us longs for a consummation that, even if it is ever attained, is had only for the briefest of moments.

For awhile, this is a waiting that consumes the mind: We want to meet the right person, fall in love, get married, have children, achieve something significant, create something lasting, gain the respect of family and peers, create some independence, and acquire the good things of life.

Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong here? Isn’t the task of life precisely that of making the present moment enough? Doesn’t the wisdom of the ages tell us to seize the day?

Karl Jung said that life is a journey between the paradise of the womb and the paradise of heaven. Jesus said that while on earth we are on pilgrimage. Is it any wonder then that at a certain point in life we begin to realize that everything is a variant of, or a substitute for, waiting?

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