I am not at the top of the list of ‘successful meditators’ nor of ‘creative poets’ but I woke yesterday morning to the words ‘the urgency of waiting’ which I understood was highlighting the need to wait amidst what we consider to be ever so urgent to get on with.
I thought about
- A thousand years is as but a day
- Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength
- Imitating those who through faith and patience inherited the promises
- The woman who went through the ritual of dropping her two coins in the temple offering
- The person who moves too quickly is liable to miss their way
- The instruction to ‘Stand at the crossroads and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way lies; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.’
The urgency of waiting
Don’t delay, get on with it, later is always too late
urgent, understand urgency
don’t put it off
respond, act, move
and then I hear…
the urgency of waiting
don’t wait when you have nothing to do
but wait when you have so much to do
this is truly urgent.
The urgent, the pressure
but avoid it and survive? And yet it always comes round again to call, to persecute
so why wait? To procrastinate but have some life might be the way
but still I hear
the urgency of waiting
I wait, I slow, distractions press in
I fear the urgent will dictate
but I wait, I refuse the tyrannical voice
I gain sight, not much, peace and breath they come
but too slowly
and I am done with waiting.
I know what is urgent, what calls for movement and
action.
I know the voice of demand
that uses language I understand
a voice I can hear and obey.
And yet I ask in those moments did I truly hear
and if I heard what was it that came…
words of life and freedom
or simply a map for my future?
A new way, a new movement forward
standing and waiting, listening until…
but nothing comes and I return to the obscure map of the urgent.
I turn once more. I have to turn
aside.
‘Aside’, a different place, a location that is unfamiliar
for no map has been made, no clock has been fashioned
and so unfamiliar is this location that I don’t…
and yet a different sight, even a different breath
a new rhythm, a new harmony
simply arrives.
I will try this again for the old map though,
old and familiar has never
mapped the future.
How much can I see, what can I truly hear
what can I sense? Important questions
answered in the urgency of waiting.