WAITING

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

We wait.  We wait on work to come. We wait on work to be finished.  We wait on people, things, events, daylight, opportunities, doors to open, doors to close, Mr. Right, love, life, happiness, blessings, rain, fate, better health.  We wait.  We wait until the time is right, until the last child graduates college, the mortgage is paid off, relationships begin or end or wait until we have enough time or we get a raise. We wait in lines, in traffic, and we wait to grow up. 

The trick is realizing that life is what is happening while we wait.  My favorite book of all time is Gifts from the Sea  by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her words resonate today. "The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea. It is Spring.  We plant seeds and we wait.  Each day we rush out to the garden to see if there are green shoots coming out of the warm earth.  We wait.

What happens in the space in between? 

We have plans.  Plans that will come to fruition, if only we wait long enough.  E.M. Forster hit the nail on the head, "We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."  Or to take it one step further, to have the life we have now, right now. Perhaps this is where we go wrong. What is it we are waiting for that is more important than this moment? 

Time always seems too long if we are waiting. But what is happening is that we are surrendering our entire being to each moment that could have been spent on a happy day.

We are a country that is consummed by hustle and bustle and rush, rush, rush! Yet we still spend an extraordinary amount of time standing around waiting!  What wonderous things are being lost, undiscovered, while we wait?

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

~Carl Sagan

"The man for whom time stretches out painfully is one waiting in vain, disappointed at not finding tomorrow already  - continuing yesterday."                                                                ~Theodor Adorno

Why are you waiting? What are you waiting for? What are you missing while you wait?