Waiting is difficult

My children love announcing that some basic need (like clean socks, fairness, or their favorite cereal) isn’t being met. My own art takes time for ideas to coalesce into a presentable finished product. And anyone who has ever been herded into the DPS waiting room knows it rivals Dante’s 9th circle of Hell. Every time I hear Teilhard de Chardin’s Patient Trust, I am reminded that delays, instability, and the unknown are scary to all humanity.

And waiting in the darkness is even worse. When I can’t solve a problem now, when I must wait for time to heal and people to forgive, I really struggle. Perhaps it all boils down to a desire for control, but waiting (and waiting without knowing what you’re waiting for) is psychologically and sometimes physically painful. But Chardin gives us his poignant prayer. Ignatius gives us the concept of indifference. And these daily readings for March 11th offer us some analogies.

The Psalms’ image of the sentinel jumps out immediately. I picture a solitary figure, alone and cold, looking towards the East waiting for the safety and comfort of the sun. Because I often pray by creating images I wrestled with the shape of a guard, staring over the security of a walled city, bored and perhaps fearful of the things he cannot see. I imagined the desperation of a soldier in those moments before the first rays of light break over the horizon, grateful for the traces of a slightly orangish hue, anticipating the warmth and familiarity that daylight brings.

Each of these readings called me into a struggle with patience. The Old Testament reminds me that change can happen even at the end of a long journey, and that patience and trust might keep me on the path to God. The New Testament asks me to slow down and reorder my priorities towards the “other”, not to hastily fulfill obligatory rituals without examining my relationship with the community. Then of course there is our responsorial Psalm. And is much easier to empathize with a tired and impatient sentinel guarding a tower when we are squarely in the middle of lent awaiting the light of the resurrection of Christ.

Author: David Williams, Sophomore Counselor & Art Department