Sacred Waiting
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I can remember being so excited about Christmas morning. The days seemed to crawl by as I happily anticipated the surprises from Santa. And as much as I enjoyed school, I couldn’t wait until summer vacation and all the fun I’d be having going to camp, traveling, swimming and spending extended time with my Grandma. I remember what it was like waiting until I was fourteen and could get a license to drive a motor boat in New York State. I couldn’t wait to tear around the lake in my family’s Boston Whaler. Thirteen seemed like forever for a lot of reasons.
I imagine you can recall that time of childhood, waiting for good things to happen. But it often seems that waiting starts to get a bad rap when we grow up.
Our adult waiting takes on varied forms. There’s the everyday waiting in the grocery check-out line or waiting for the waiter (don’t you love the English language?!) to bring our check. Then there’s what I call the serious waiting: waiting for medical test results, or for a new job after months of unemployment; waiting for a new love, for a precious child to be born or adopted, or to become pregnant with a much desired child; waiting to see if we’re accepted for college or a training program or promotion; waiting for a child to grow out of this phase, for health to return after illness or injury; waiting for the adult child to finally move out and move on, or for grief to subside to gentleness; waiting, waiting, waiting. We actually do quite a bit of waiting over the course of our lives.
These times of waiting can be rich times of anticipation or tense times of apprehension. I ask you to consider the possibility that waiting itself is a spiritual practice, a pregnant moment or series of moments in your life full of potential for growth and insight. Yes, we sometimes rail against the interminable wait, filled with anxiety, tension and impatience. Understandably so. Waiting can feel stressful or even painful as we hope for the best but anticipate the worst.
But this is a season of sacred waiting. The Christian story of the birth of Jesus features lots of waiting: Mary waits while mysteriously pregnant, and her kinswoman Elizabeth waits as well—also pregnant; the shepherds wait in their fields; the three kings wait for the culmination of their journey at Bethlehem; and Joseph and Mary wait in Egypt until it is safe to return home after the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod. Lots of waiting. And so the Advent season is all about waiting—not frustrating, upsetting waiting, but rather sacred waiting. Waiting with sacred intent.
Christians set aside the entire month before Christmas to practice—with intention—sacred waiting. It is meant to be a time of deep reflection in the midst of the busiest, most frenetic time of year. The paradox is marvelous: to seek spiritual quiet by practicing sacred waiting, even as the world around us calls out for an uber-burst of activity.
But really, December is just an intense microcosm of our contemporary lives, filled with more activities than anyone can reasonably handle while we also seek out that contemplative stillness, that sense of sacred waiting deep within us. This paradox is our constant companion.
What would it be like to really practice sacred waiting—or perhaps we could call it holy anticipation? December and January are great months to try it out. Perhaps our ancestors from millennia past had it right. Winter darkness was a natural time to turn inward during the cold, gaze into the hearth fire, scan the stars shining through crystalline night air, slow down to the pace of the earth in its deep winter rest. Imagine yourself truly slowing to the pace of dark winter nights, giving yourself the spaciousness to contemplate the mysteries of life, the mysteries of your own life. Sounds just lovely to me…
The progressive Christian theologian Matthew Fox says the Western world is long overdue to come to grips with the blessings of “endarkenment” rather than always focusing on the philosophy of “enlightenment.” He challenges us to befriend darkness and let our inmost selves learn from it. For the darkness has many gifts to bestow.
In our privileged lives, in this place, in this century, we have all but forgotten the gifts of the dark as we over-light our lives 24/7. And yet, the natural rhythm of the earth is the daily pattern of light and dark, over and over, without fail—a holy balance that includes its measure of both endarkenment and enlightenment. A balance that is tipped in favor of the dark at this time of year.
And so I wonder—can you wait quietly in the dark, in the space of not knowing, in the place of mystery?
German writer Rainer Maria Rilke expresses the notion of sacred waiting in another way when he writes: “Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” Rilke sensed the deep truth that quite often in life we are living in the darkness of mystery, impatiently anticipating our future and wanting answers right here, right now. And he offers the wisdom that waiting is the answer: live the questions now, and eventually, down the road, you will live into the answers.
I remember the first time I heard this Rilke quote. I was a newly divorced mother of two young daughters who knew that marketing fruit juice was not my true calling, but could not yet imagine my way into a satisfying future of meaningful work. A wise older friend gave me this quote and it sat on my dresser mirror for years as, indeed, I waited to live into the answers.
And I did. I raised my daughters and, as circumstances unfolded, I made different choices about my livelihood, moving from a business career to a non-profit management career and then ultimately to ministry. All the while living the questions, spending time in that space of not knowing, dreaming in the place of mystery, exploring the fertile dark humus where the seeds of my future would take root.
I am still living the questions, which ever evolve in new and intriguing ways, asking me about what I most deeply value and what is most important for me to be doing in this latest unfolding chapter of my life.
And so I ask again, can you wait quietly in the dark, in the space of not knowing, in the place of mystery? Can you give yourself the gift of pregnant stillness where possibilities are conceived? Will you make space in your life to breathe, relax and let the darkness befriend you?
For the truth is that we are forever waiting for something. Our life journeys will always have us anticipating, waiting—the trick is to make this waiting into a precious time of growth and insight instead of a time of angst and dread.
I like some suggestions that UU minister and theologian Tom Owen-Towle offers for waiting, three words that I think can help our sacred waiting become more intentional and focused.
First, be perceptive—really look at your life and see what can be, not simply what has been. Look beneath the surface, beyond the literal and behind the ruts you may find yourself in.
Second, be conceptive—create something entirely new in that darkness of unknowing. Dream out of the box in collaborative exciting ways that bring beauty and amazingness to your life.
Third, be receptive—open your spirit to gifts that just might emerge from your newfound patience with yourself and the world in this time of waiting. Perceptive. Conceptive. Receptive.
And, in this unsettling time, let us be perceptive, conceptive and receptive as we imagine a different future where we boldly and bravely address the very real suffering of people of color living under systems of oppression that do not serve human need or dignity. Let us be perceptive to look beneath the surface of manifestations of oppression so that we can begin to truly understand what has been going on for a long, long time. Let us be conceptive to add our energy and good will toward creating the new world we dream about where institutional racism no longer holds sway. Let us be receptive to learning the truth of lives of people of color, and to rolling up our sleeves to work alongside these communities with humility and grace as we all seek to create the peace and justice that is our inherent birthright as children of a loving God. Friends, this is holy work that is our work to do.
My wish for you in the holy season of waiting is that you will befriend darkness in your spiritual life and see what treasures await you there. You may want to imagine yourself as a seed, a tiny bundle of potential, safely enveloped in rich dark humus, awaiting the warmth and water of spring.
Dream as a seed dreams of what it might be like, knowing that you can’t possibly know yet whether you are a green bean or giant sequoia. You just know you have the potential to become, to grow, and to fully, robustly and joyfully live in the mystery. Lie there patiently in the ground and ask yourself seed questions. Then, live into the answers as your life unfolds.
May your seed time, your endarkenment, your sacred waiting, germinate into beauty and fresh new life beyond your wildest imagination.
She loves preaching and has received these awards:
Joseph Priestly District Racial Justice Sermon Award2009 "Conversations Yet to Come"
The Rev. Dale Arnick Sermon Award for Humanist Preaching 2015
"Cosmic Theology"
UUA Stewardship Sermon Award 2016
"Strengthening Our Roots"
- Sacred Waiting - December 1, 2016
We really enjoyed this when I played it for our small, Sunday morning circle. Thank you!