Waiting
in Silence
by Mary
C. Earle
We
have waited in silence on your loving-kindness, O God.
—Psalms 48:8
Most
of the time, we don’t wait. And we certainly don’t wait
in silence. Most of the time, we hurry and we push. We split time
into tenths of seconds. We fret when a traffic light turns red and
holds us up for a bit. The press of hurrying creates harried and
hassled souls, disconnected from life and from kindness itself.
By
contrast, in Spanish, the verb esperar means both “to
hope” and “to wait.” I have a native plant called
esperanza in my gardens. It grows and blooms in the driest conditions,
offering copious blossoms in gold or orange. When the blooms come,
I am reminded of waiting in silence on loving-kindness. I am reminded
of something that my usual pace all but obliterates: there is a
way of being and knowing that is grounded in timing I did not create.
There is a way of being and
knowing that dimly remembers that waiting in hope is an attitude
of faith.
Waiting
in silence, creating space for steadfast love to grow within, may
be the most essential practice of all. It is in many ways the spirit
of Advent, that time of the Christian liturgical year when we practice
the waiting of gestation and hoping, of trusting in new life not
yet fully known.
Thomas
Merton, Trappist monk and author, remarked that life is a perpetual
Advent. He sensed that in that waiting, trust began to grow. Trust
in God, trust in the Holy One who is beyond all that is created
and is the source of all things, seen and unseen. Trusting and waiting
allow the loving-kindness that is the essence of God’s own
Life to grow in us, and to bear fruit that we never expected.
Grant
me O God the capacity to wait in hope, to allow your own loving-kindness
to grow in me, for the life of your world. Amen.
Copyright
©2006 Mary C. Earle |
