My hawk photo taken at corner of Westchester and Chatham Rd while at a stoplight.
Sunday November 20tth 2011
Waiting with Patience
How do we wait for God? We wait with patience. But patience does not mean passivity. Waiting patiently is not like waiting for the bus to come, the rain to stop, or the sun to rise. It is an active waiting in which we live the present moment to the full in order to find there the signs of the One we are waiting for.
The word patience comes from the Latin verb patior which means "to suffer." Waiting patiently is suffering through the present moment, tasting it to the full, and letting the seeds that are sown in the ground on which we stand grow into strong plants. Waiting patiently always means paying attention to what is happening right before our eyes and seeing there the first rays of God's glorious coming.
Henry Nouwen
I was intrigued by this article because I had never thought of the word patiently and suffering having anything in common. While standing in the toy store checkout it was a bit of a struggle to wait patiently which I managed to do and was polite and smiling at other waiting customers. Everyone seemed patient with the clerks, even the one in front of me who had to wait for four dollars and the cashier was out of ones. She rang up my order, took my payment and shut the drawer. No one showed up with the ones so I offered her five ones for a five, she didn't know how to open the drawer. After someone opened the drawer we exchanged cash, the other lady received her four dollars and we walked out of the store together. I felt sure I was getting close to a panic attack and was glad to get out the door.
That took patience!
1 comment:
This writing had good content, Kathy. Good job. Waiting for God ... we forget that God is already surrounding us. God is the Hawk, the clerk, the customer. This is where we find God/beauty in each moment...in the eyes of each other...
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