During Advent this season, the choir is doing a piece called ‘Waiting’.
Waiting, we are waiting, Lord. Fill the mind, ‘til we find your light, your truth.
Listening, we are listening, Lord. Draw near, let us hear your word for us.
Now let us know your presence, Lord, Emmanuel, God be with us.
We welcome you with open hearts, Emmanuel, God be with us.
Patience, give us patience, Lord. When we pray, give us faith that you hear our every prayer,
As we’re waiting.
Simple, prayerful lyrics. Seems writing a reflection on them would be equally simple. But maybe not. Waiting is what we consider we’re doing when something we wish for or want to happen is not appearing or happening. We detest that. Listening and patience are rarely involved.
This choral piece is about a different kind of waiting. My sister and I discussed this topic at length after I told her about my intent to write about it, and we agreed waiting is a more complicated concept than marking time until a traffic light changes, or the dental assistant calls your name, or news about a diagnosis comes, or your orchids finally bloom.
Jenny used one of my favorite terms – liminal space – where we are standing in a sort of gap or void between situations or states, neither the past nor the future. She referred to it as a “definite experience of time…[in which] we focus on the manifestation of some outcome or expectation to occur”. She also related it to the sometimes agonizing experience of waiting for restoration or healing of a human relationship when boundaries are breached and one out of both parties is unwilling to seek reconciliation.
Jenny’s touchstone on the subject of waiting is a scripture verse hanging by her back door in the form of a wall-hanging cross-stitched by our mother decades ago. Isaiah 40:31 – “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” She views it as a mutual commitment between the Divine and the human – we are waiting on the Divine, and the Divine is waiting on us, because the Divine understands what it’s like to be human and to wait. My sister has incredibly deep insights on things unseen.
Events, relationships, situations and revelations along my own spiritual journey have me led to begin thinking of waiting in a slightly different context from an individualistic viewpoint.
Waiting in my own situations has become easier with study, reflection and effort in the practices of silence, meditation, centering prayer. But lately I have noticed feeling more and more drawn into awareness of humanity’s desperate need for unity and community in the facets of life that are most important and seem to be disintegrating before our eyes. So when the choir began learning ‘Waiting’, I was struck by the phrase “We are waiting…” not “I am waiting” – we are waiting.
The Hebrew nation waited centuries for Emmanuel. And when he arrived many did not recognize him because he didn’t behave in the manner they had expected. They had waited but without patience and without listening, it seems, except for a few who joined together and paid attention.
My touchstone for this process of waiting is Psalm 41:10:
“He says, be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in all the earth.”
Although the psalm was written to Israel as a nation, generations have found personal guidance and comfort in its message. I recently found that in several other translations the words ‘be still’ are translated ‘stop struggling’, or ‘stop fighting’. This put a whole new light on the thought for me. If I am struggling to stay in a state of waiting to hear God’s voice, I am not getting it. I will never hear it.
We are waiting. But as we wait, often in confusion and fear, for Emmanuel’s full purpose to unfold in this beleaguered and troubled world, we must do it together, not struggling or agonizing, but paying attention, thoughts stilled, ears open. We must exercise patience and listen for our minds to be filled with light and truth. We must continue to follow the wise and courageous leadership with which we are mightily blessed in our own holy community and join hands in unity with all who seek to follow the way of Emmanuel – God with us. The way may not look like what we expected, but it is the way to peace, and will be worth the wait.
This reflection was written by Christine Harris.