OPEN-ENDED WAITING

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 I would have a job.  I wish that the weather would be better.  I wish that the pain would go." 

We are full of wishes, and our waiting easily gets entangled in those wishes.  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.  That is why we have such a hard time waiting; we want to do the things that will make the desired events take place.  Here we can see how wishes tend to be connected with fears.

But Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary were not filled with wishes.  They were filled with hope.  Hope is something very different.  Hope is trusting that something will be fulfilled, but fulfilled according to the promises and not just according to our wishes.  Therefore, hope is always open-ended.

-- Henri J. M. Nouwen in "A Spirituality of Waiting", from The Weavings Reader, John S. Mogabgab, editor, published by The Upper Room, Nashville, TN.   Used with permission.


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