Waiting
for Guidance
“All of
the practices we've discussed—praying for help, stillness,
gratitude, surrender, forgiveness, and loving the truth—are all
facets of a single jewel: humility. It's that basic attitude of not
knowing—but being willing to be shown—that allows the ego to step
aside so that true nature can emerge. The willingness to let go of
the known is the oil for the lamp of awakening...”
Joan
Borysenko (Your Soul's Compass: What Is Spiritual Guidance?)
Twice in the last week, I
have consulted the I Ching for guidance about what I should do next
in terms of my writing. Each time, I threw a different pattern with
the coins, but both readings offered the same advice—wait. Have
patience; there are things that you cannot know now, and you must
wait until they reveal themselves. Do you know how hard that is for
me? Wait, you say! Have patience! Please!
We live in an age of
instant gratification—everything is at our fingertips, and we don't
even have to act to get it. We can simply say, “Siri, or Cortana,
or Google, order pizza. Play my favorite music. Call my wife and tell
her I'll be late.” The idea of waiting for almost anything is
foreign to our ears. But, do you remember when we used to send
letters by mail? The anticipation, the excitement when we saw a
letter in our mailbox? Sometimes it was a sensory experience—we
could smell the senders cologne, see their actual handwriting, feel the texture of their paper. Waiting was a thrilling part of the
experience. Whether the letter was from our grandmother, our friend,
our pen-pal in another country, or our sweetheart—each one was
unique. One of my grandmothers had handwriting that looked like a
chicken had stomped around on the page—I can still see it in my
minds eye. There was no auto-correct. My other grandmother used words
like “orter” and “sorter” for ought to and sort of, and she
wrote them exactly as she said them. When I remember that, I can hear
her voice in my head. I know I'm waxing nostalgic, but I miss that
personal connection.
Some friends were here
for dinner last night. We talked about many things, but at one point
the subject of email came up. One person said that she had 7,000
emails in her in-box. Another said she just couldn't make herself
take the time to clean them out, and didn't read most of what came
because it required scrolling through hundreds to find the one thing
she wanted to read. Our quest for instant gratification has
eliminated some of the richest parts of life.
Spiritual practices are
one way of recapturing the essence of humility. When we have to wait,
to be still, to forgive, or to focus on what we are grateful for in
each moment, we silence the me-me-me, instant gratification demand.
We have to tune in and listen. We have to acknowledge just how
limited our knowledge is, and that we are not in control of very
much. We live in this moment, and the next moment is not guaranteed
to anyone. We have to wait to see what will unfold. We have to
practice patience. We have to admit that we do not know. We have to
stay open to what comes next, and wait for it to be revealed. And it
will be revealed, in due time—in Spirit's time, not in ours.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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