"Hey, wait a minute"
often means way more than a minute.
We spend lots and lots of minutes just plain old waiting.
For all the hurry up of our speed crazed society,
we wait, and wait, and wait.
Example.
I just called to cancel a doctor's appointment.
Took ten minutes listening to a mindless machine message
a dozen times over telling me how important my call was,
giving five options/prompts
("Listen carefully as our menu has changed")
with the most God awful music stretching things out between rotations
until I finally got through to a real live person,
who then put me on hold for another two minutes.
For all our trimmed up hurry,
we are heavily weighted down with waiting.
You know what?
That might just be a blessing hidden in plain site.
Being forced to wait is a broadside blow to our ego demands:
"I'm in control"
"Things around here need to happen when and as I require" .
Forced waiting unequivocally says to our soul,
"Not so! You're not in control of everything
and the world doesn't spin to your every touch!!"
We don't like to hear that.
We need to hear that.
Do we hear it?
Put another way, the asceticism of waiting tells us
"You're part of the show, not the whole show.
Hush up, and get in line!"
It invites to a happy humility,
one that frees us from the illusion and burden
of trying to manage everything and everyone,
even reality itself.
The asceticism of waiting also tells us
that we are blessed to be in solidarity
with all the people, places and parts of earth life.
Creation is working itself out, sometimes with interruptions for sure.
Things are meant to have an organic symmetry and harmony.
It may take a while,
"So, slow down to catch up with that goodness."
When we are forced to wait in traffic, on line at the DMV,
are number 255 at the deli counter,
when the express lube at the car dealer's isn't even close to express,
we are gifted with bonus moments to muse and meditate.
When our child is taking a month of moments to finish their homework,
when we just ache for our company to go home so we can get to bed,
when an elderly person just can't wrap up their reminiscences
in under what seems like ten years,
we are gifted with a call to
Long Love
a stretch that stretches soul to a fuller fullness of sharing God's Love.
Hey, thanks for waiting more than a minute for this to finish!!
Right here waiting with you in life's line,
John Frank
*****
Each week we are privileged to have new folks joining us.
Welcome! Have good to be together here at
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
- it is posted online each Thursday evening, east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
- it is available by automatic email delivery Fridays - sign up above right
- it offers past postings at Blog Archive - bottom right column.
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!!
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