On Waiting

What! A new post already? That’s right! But don’t get used to it.

What follows are roughly some quotations from Henri Nouwen’s “A Spirituality of Waiting.” I say “roughly” because I do not have the actual article as it has proven hard to come by. In any event, these are some quotations that I found via the web.

Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. That’s the secret. The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening. A waiting person is a patient person. The word “patience” means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there.

But there is more. Waiting is open-ended. Open-ended waiting is hard for us because we tend to wait for something very concrete, for something that we wish to have. Much of our waiting is filled with wishes: “I wish that the weather would be better. I wish that the pain would go.” For this reason, a lot of our waiting is not open-ended. Instead, our waiting is a way of controlling the future. We want the future to go in a very specific direction, and if this does not happen we are disappointed and can even slip into despair.

To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imagining. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God molds us according to God’s love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.

It seems to me that here in a nutshell Nouwen gives a nice description of the life of the journeyer. To say that waiting, or the journey, is open-ended is not the same as saying it is pointless. It rather has a point, or a destination, but these aspects show up in unexpected ways. I feel a tension, however. A tension between the notion of paying attention and giving credence to my own desires, dreams, wishes, and such; and the notion of letting God define my life. Are these incompatible modes of travel or not? I’m not exactly sure. I think it might be an understatement to call this mode of waiting radical.

Since we are on the heals of Easter week it is fitting to think of our journey in relation to the passage describing Jesus’ arrest. The text says Judas handed Jesus over. Moreover, a similar phrase is used in Romans when it says that God handed him over to benefit us all. Nouwen points out that Jesus’ life seems characterized by two phases. The first phase was action orientated. The second was dominated by waiting; being handed over. Perhaps, then, the life of the journeyer is one that moves back and forth through these phases. I guess right now I am mostly thinking about the second one: the uncomfortable idea of being handed over, even to God.

As Sue Monk Kidd puts it, “We’re meant to live the Christ-life, including his waiting and his passion. We’re meant to hand ourselves over so that we can wait our own wait, hold our own tensions, enter our own suffering, emerge from our own tomb and know aliveness for the first time.”

A Word Behind You

You no doubt are familiar with the poem by Mary Stevenson called “Footprints in the Sand.” In this poem a man has a dream in which he is walking along the beach with God while scenes from his life flash in the sky. It is not totally clear to me how this scene is supposed to play out, but apparently for most of the scenes the man sees two sets of footprints in the sand: one belongs to him and the other set belongs to God. He notices, however, during particularly troublesome times in his life that there is only one set of footprints. He mistakenly assumes that during these troubling times God had left him alone. So he asks God why he would be left alone during the most difficult times in his life. And God’s comforting answer is that God was carrying the man during those times, and that is why there is only one set of footprints.

Now, I don’t mean to be disrespectful of this poem (there actually are other versions of this poem out there in cyberspace), but I want to offer an alternative interpretation of the man’s dream. There is more than one way to explain the single set of footprints. The scenario I have in mind is as follows: imagine you and a friend are on a walk in winter through newly fallen snow that is several feet deep. Each step is laborious, lifting one leg up high, moving it forward, and sinking it back into the snow, then pulling the other foot out and planting it a few feet ahead. This can go on for some time before it dawns on the both of you that it would be much easier for one person to blaze the trail and the other to follow in the cavernous footsteps. After walking single file like this for several hundred feet you turn around and look back at your tracks. Sure enough you can see when the two sets of tracks turn into one set. Neat story eh?

Well we can apply this scenario now to the footprints in the sand. The reason there is only one set of footprints during the difficult times is not that one person was being carried, but rather that one person was following in the footsteps of the other. Clever, I know. Now, you may be thinking that there is spiritual significance in that case too. Indeed Jesus is called the pioneer of our faith, and in this case we could say that Jesus is blazing a trail during difficult times and the man subsequently follows in those footprints. No doubt, this is true at times, but I have something even different in mind that is related to past posts about becoming a journeyer rather than an arranger.

This is a passage from Isaiah 30: 19-22:

O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, he, your Teacher will no longer hide himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. And your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. And you will defile your graven images, overlaid with sliver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing; and say to them “Be gone!”

What’s intriguing (mystifying? angering?) about this passage is that the voice comes from behind. Perhaps the translation wasn’t meant to imply directionality, but I found it striking and true to experience. Sometimes I plead with God, “Please show me the way, or relieve this suffering, or bring healing to this wound.” And for a long time there is just silence: privation and oppression. But then comes the time when he hears (notice it is “when” he hears, i.e., it is not immediate). He no longer hides but decides to show himself. The Teacher shows himself as a voice from behind, as it were, a much more subtle form of guidance and companionship than being carried or led. The relief is sweet no doubt, but it really is a different kind of spiritual experience to have God show up behind me.

Nonetheless, we can notice the journeyer’s reaction. When I hear the Teacher’s voice I turn from my idols. As valuable as they are in monetary terms, my idols are worthless in getting me along in the journey. I am tempted to idolatry when things are hard, i.e., I turn to all kinds of things for relief and to feel better about myself and my life situation: good food, scintillating conversation, books, the past, entertainment, purchasing power, future goals, etc. Nearly anything that is good can become an idol in these situations. But they are always exposed for what they are in the end: good things become bad.

Returning to the footprints in the sand, in my interpretation the single set of footprints is the trace of my own journey made by the treads of my own shoes, while my Teacher walks behind me. I write this at a time when I am waiting for the Teacher to speak so I don’t mean to suggest that this is a neat and tidy picture. It is not poem material. At the moment I feel like I am just plodding along, alone and without much guidance. I rant and rave every once in a while, and most other times I cry for help. In my finer moments I have been identifying the idols that I am holding on to for security. So if you hear me mutter “be gone!” you will know why. There is no doubt that I would rather be carried at this time, but there is some assurance in knowing that this option is not the only, or perhaps usual, one God takes with me.

Road Closed

Road Closed: Your journey lies along another path. You’ve got to let all that go now.

These words jumped off the page at me as I read them in John Eldredge’s The Journey of Desire. It seems like I have come across so many Road Closed signs recently in my life journey. You know when things in life just are not quite working out as planned or expected. Job possibilities fall through, relationships end, work doesn’t progress as hoped, cars break down, technology fails to come through, etc. Sometimes these obstacles require pushing through (driving past the Road Closed sign), other times they require a slight detour, and yet other times they require a whole re-working of travel plans—including perhaps changing destinations. It seems that recent events in my life have been calling for the latter, but it has been hard to get my heart to go along with it. After all, won’t I miss out on something if I can’t follow the road I set out on? I mean, I won’t actually reach the destination that I have been longing for, in the way I had hoped, and in the time I had allocated.

In his book, Eldredge make the distinction between an arranger and a journeyer. These are really two opposite approaches to living. There are those that live life by attempting to arrange for the kind of life they really desire. If only I could work hard enough, the approach says, or be clever enough, or have enough money, then I could get myself (and others) in a position to really reach out and satisfy the deep desires and longings of my heart.

The opposite approach is one of the journeyer. Now the journeyer no doubt works hard—it is never easy to walk through life. But there is a subtle difference of attitude. The journeyer is one who no longer depends on his own ability to arrange for stuff, even the stuff I so deeply desire. The journeyer is not frantic to control and possess. The journeyer is able to relax and enjoy what comes his way because he is free from being ruled by desire. This does not mean that we no longer desire stuff, but rather that we let go of the need, ability, and compulsion to satisfy those desires in our way and our own timing. It is desire at rest.

As Eldridge points out, when things go wrong in our life's journey of desire we only have three options: 1) to be alive and thirsty, 2) to be dead, or 3) to be addicted. The first is the route of the journeyer. The second is the route of the spiritualizer—the one who kills desire. The third is the route of the indulger/avoider. In this way we can see how the second and third options really mirror each other, i.e., they are both varieties of arranging. It is often subtle how the appearance of spirituality is really a disguise of its opposite.

In any event, it seems clear that the first option is the best of the three, but also the more difficult. It is difficult, I suppose, because it is a bit paradoxical. Eldridge says you can tell which option you have chosen to live by asking yourself: What am I waiting for? Is there anything I ardently desire that I am doing nothing to secure?

I hope you see the subtle difference between trying to arrange for life, and engaging in life as a journeyer. You see someone could claim to be a journeyer by passively waiting, when their waiting is really a disguise for their fear of walking the path mapped before them. Waiting is not passive, and it is by no means easy on the heart. The Scriptures speak often of waiting and it is most often linked with grieving or groaning.

Sometimes the little Road Closed signs that I come across in life simply tap into the vast reservoir of disappointment I have stored up from living so long as an arranger. Now we see that being an arranger, while less difficult in one sense, is more difficult in another. If you think it is hard to live as a hopeful journeyer, try living as a hopeful arranger. Not only are the odds against you, but being a spiritualizer or an addict kills hope all together.

To help live as a journeyer, Eldridge suggest two disciplines: worship and grief. The first is perhaps self-explanatory, but the latter may seem puzzling. Put briefly, grieving is an important aspect of letting go of the compulsion to arrange for life. It helps work surrender into our hearts. As Eldridge writes: “Desire is still present, felt, welcomed even. But the will to secure is made subject to the divine will in an act of abandoned trust. True surrender is not an easy out, calling it quits early in the game. It comes only after we open our hearts to care deeply. Then we choose to surrender, or give over, our deepest desires to God. And with them we give over our hearts, our deepest selves.”

As I was thinking through these issues I came across this passage from Galatians 3 in the Message: “The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you.” That phrase “embracing what God arranges” has been ringing in my head for several weeks now. That is the life of the journeyer. So Road Closed signs are really opportunities to embrace what God has arranged. They are reminders that we are on a journey, and despite some obstacles we are at least still on the road.

“The more comfortable we are with mystery in our journey, the more rest we will know along the way.”