Waiting, still. It’s a phrase that pulls me subtly in two directions, the gentle and insistent pull of two tides. The first is the tide of frustration and impatience. It is my inner small one crying out “I’m still waiting? When are were going to get there?” The second is the pull towards stillness that I have found as I wait. It is a quietening of myself, an attentiveness, and an openness. I felt in prayer recently that God was telling me that if I knew what was coming, I would choose it, with all the waiting and uncertainty I feel now. This space, with both kinds of “waiting, still” is quietly alive with something I can’t fully see yet. And it is true already that I would choose it, because my discernment keeps leading me back to saying yes to all of this again, even before I know where I am headed.
As I think about it, perhaps these two tides are not so much opposing forces as two parts of the same thing. Maybe they are one tide, with an ebb and a flow. I think there are things I am learning in both postures. I know myself well enough to know that waiting in quiet stillness for months on end is not realistic or sustainable. It is good to do something with all my impatience and longing. It feels fruitful and life-giving to do something useful, to help someone out, to stretch the legs of my gifts and abilities. I can take my frustration and put it into action, even if it isn’t the action I’m longing for. It keeps me from jumping into something too soon, to grabbing the first opportunity and trying to force it to fit just because I am impatient.
But what I have consistently been finding is that busyness and activity is cathartic and useful in the short term, I also need its counterpoint, which deepens my connection to the mystery. In stillness, I am finding healing, hope, and a deepening sense of trust. In the quiet, the calm, the mysterious and open not-doing, I have found tremendous healing and a deeper sense of connection both to the divine and to my community. I feel a deeper peace in my body. I cycle back to hope an awful lot quicker than I used to. I trust myself more when the torrents of emotion pour through me. I think this is much of the point of my waiting. Perhaps some of it hasn’t been waiting at all, but a quiet kind of work— a slow healing, no less miraculous because it has been so time consuming. It is the time of the mystic. The desert period. The wilderness wandering. The holy encounter.
In the other sort of still-ness, I think there resides a stubborn and child-like form of hope. In the restless insistence of “still, God?” There is a deep and deepening belief that something really good is coming. Strangely, the more avenues that fail, the harder it seems to get where I am apparently going, the more my imagination sparks. We must be going somewhere pretty wonderful if it is taking so long. This stubborn insistence is honest— it is holding God to the promises made. It is a simple, but robust, kind of hope. But somehow it has kept me drawn in, engaged in the ongoing work of holding God accountable for guiding me forward. There is something strangely holy in this. And maybe it is the ongoing work of discernment, too. By checking in again and again, by insisting that God show me the receipts, I’m going over the work of my discernment all over. I’m asking God to show me again. I’m telling God I need more. I’m looking under each rock to see what I find. And what I keep finding is the present, active, and encouraging Presence of love.
I won’t tell you that either of these two postures are easy or always gratifying. It is very difficult work, perhaps more challenging for being so simple. It isn’t easy, but I keep finding God here. I keep encountering holy and mysterious things. I continue to grow and heal. While those are not the answers I’m ultimately hoping for, they are pretty significant and often wonderful. And so I keep deciding all over again to trust this rhythm, and to trust the God who keeps showing up for me, even while I wait, still.
Wellspring 