THE SACRAMENT OF WAITING

 

I got this from a friend... I guess before it hasn't really struck me since I'm very lucky to have someone I really love and loves me back already... but then since I'll be leaving... there's a lot of waiting that's going to happen... and if we pursue what we have... more waiting again... so as the article says... life is about waiting in stages... though I'm done waiting for THE ONE... it's time to wait and see whether it is possible to BE ONE. =)

 

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The Sacrament of Waiting

 

The English poet John Milton wrote that those who serve only also stand and
wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render the
highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more self-control
and emotional maturity, more unshakable faith in our cause,more unwavering
hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts that all the greatest
deeds of deering-do go by the name of action.

Waiting is a mystery - a natural sacrament of life - there is a meaning
hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery
because there is so much waiting in our lives.
Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting (testing our
patience and our nerves, schooling us in self-control.) We wait for meals to
be served, for a letter to arrive, for a friend to call or show up for a
date. We wait in line at cinemas and theaters, concerts and circuses. Our
airline terminals, railway station s and bus depots are great temples of
waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved
one - or wait in sadness to say goodbye and give the last wave of hand. We
wait for springs to come - or autumn - for the rains to begin and stop.And
we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those
inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next stop.

We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait for
success and recognition. We wait to grow up - to reach the stage where we
make our own decisions. We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is
a part of the tapestry of living - the fabric in which the threads are woven
to tell the story of our lives.Yet current philosophies would have us forget
the need to wait "grab all the gusto you can get." So reads one of
America's greatest beer ads - get it now! Instant pleasure, instant
transcendence. Do not wait for an ything. Life is short - eat, drink and be
merry because tomorrow you will die. And so they rationalize us into
accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom- pre-marital sex and extra
marital affairs - they warn against attachments and commitments - against
expecting anything of anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us -
against dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us
to hold and wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure - but even that is
fleeting and doubtful - what was it Shakespeare said about the mad pursuit
of pleasure - "Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason hated."

Not if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh,
soul as well as heart, we have to learn to wait. For if we never learn to
wait, we will never learn to love someone other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery,
brushing by our face everyday like a stray wind of leaf falling from a tree.
Anyone who has loved knows how much waiting goes into it - how much waiting
is important for love to grow, to flourish through a lifetime.Why is this?
Why can we not have it right now what we so desperately want and need? Why
must we wait - two years, three years - and seemingly waste so much time?
You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit - the
seed to flower - carbon to change to diamond/There is no simple answer - no
more than there is to life's other demands -having to say goodbye to someone
you love because either you or they have made other commitments; o r because
they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives - having yourself
to leave home and loved ones to find your own path - good-byes, like
waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth - the budding, the flowering of love needs
patient waiting. We have to give each other a time to grow. There is no way
we can make someone else truly love us or we them, except through time. So
we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting - of being present
without asking demands and rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this.
It truly tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the
gift we give.So lovers wait for each other - until they can see things the
same way - or let each other freely see things in quite different ways.

There are times when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance of
intimacy of the way they were. They have to wait - in silence - but still
present to each other - until the pain subsides to an ache and then only a
memory and the threads of the tapestry can be woven together again in a
single love story. What do we lose when we refuse to wait; when we try to
find shortcuts through life - when we try to incubate love and rush blindly
and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough
to assume? We lose the hope of truly loving or of being loved. Think of all
the great love stories of history and literature - isn't it of their very
essence that they are filled with this strange but common mystery - that
waiting is part of the substance -the basic fabric against which the story
of that true love is written.How can we ever find either life or true love
if we are too impatient to wait for it?

Waiting is a good thing only if something is worth waiting for. How will you
know if it's worth it? Gut feel. What if you don't trust your gut? Pray. You
will be enlig htened. Trust me. Is it wrong to expect while waiting? It's not
wrong, but it will increase your chances of heartbreak and disappointment if
things don't work out in the end. Is it good to expect while waiting? It is
better to HOPE.What's the difference between hoping and expecting? HOPING
means you're open to either side of the coin landing though you're more
inclined to believe that things will turn out well. EXPECTING means you're
thinking single-track...which won't do you much good at all.What's the
difference between waiting and expecting? EXPECTING is waiting for something
TO DEFINITELY HAPPEN. WAITING is staying where you are, but not necessarily
expecting something to happen definitely.

Do you need assurance from someone you're waiting for while you're
waiting?Ideally, yes. But realistically, do you really want assurance from
this person? It's so easy to just point at something and make that the
reason why you're waiting ("Because she said..." "Because he
told me that..."). With WAITING, all you really can rely on are 3
things: your gut feel, your heart and mind. Just YOURSELF, not anyone
else.So should you wait? What does your gut say? How does your heart feel?
What does your mind think? If they're saying different things, keep asking
yourself these 3 questions (and pray!) until you get a solid answer.

THEN you'll know if he or she is worth waiting for.