As I write this post for Sunday, (now only Saturday), I am waiting. This summer's posts have circled around ways to find Peace in a time of extreme heat, climate change and political battles. By turning our attention away from the sensational and often violent stories that fill the news, we can explore spiritual practices that ground us in inner equilibrium through a different kind of fulfillment. I have urged you to explore your capacity for gentleness and consider prayer as participation in a process of ongoing Creation. Now, here in Southern California, we wait for a storm's arrival--the remnants of Hurricane Hillary--that space of the unknown, currently filled with interviews, dire predictions, and warnings of destruction.
Waiting, the space of in-between, is a powerful factor in human experience. Philosopher Alan Watts wrote of the trap of Western cultural conditioning that continually postpones the joy of life by a focus on goals and stages of achievement. In a sense, we are always waiting for life to begin some day...after I graduate...after I get that dream job...when I meet my soul mate, after we have children...when I am financially free...when I recover from this illness...when I retire. Watts' point was that life is not a destination; it's a journey and a dance--all of Life. Life is the experience of living, including the buildup, the storm, and it's aftermath, it's changes and it's surprises, and the new routes it opens. Holding that perspective, it's all a marvel, even the times perceived as failure and loss.
On the other hand, waiting is some times the defining quality of a moment, the interval of time when events and circumstances, beyond our conscious participation and control are being formed, unseen. I remember a spiritual gathering in Europe where a young woman, several months pregnant with her first child flew from India with her husband to meet with our mutual spiritual teacher, U.G. Krishnamurti. She was having some frightening symptoms and many had discouraged her to travel, but she felt the trip was important for her child's future, and took the risk. During a group discussion, she described what she was going through, and asked one of the doctors there for his opinion. I was shocked when he bluntly gave her a dire summary of how her pregnancy would end, concluding she most likely was losing the baby and quite likely would die herself. Everyone became quiet, processing his ominous speech. U.G. was silent. I personally thought it unconscionable to predict such an outcome in a public setting, with no other medical exam or data. In the silence she looked at me, and said, "Susan, you are a doctor, you have been quiet, what do you think?" Rather than fight the other doctor, or give my biased reassurances also without an exam or tests, I told her, as gently as I could, the difficult truth: "You have to wait."
That was about 18 years ago and her daughter is now a lovely young woman, following her own path. In Hermann Hesse's story of Siddhartha (Buddha), during a changing phase of life, Siddhartha seeks employment. His potential boss, in a kind of interview, asks him, "What can you do?" Siddhartha states his main qualifications: "I can think, I can wait, I can fast." Here is solid competency--a being who can reason, formulate plans, and problem solve. One who also has the patience to let things unfold and reveal what is needed, by waiting. And one who can manage himself, his appetites and emotions, who is not ruled by hunger for more than is given.
You today may not be waiting on a weather storm, but likely Sunday morning can often bring a sense of waiting. Yet, within the waiting, life is moving. This is a day to greet it. Where is it leading you now? (Susan Nettleton)
For poetry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../i-am-waiting...