I have waited for this day for weeks. Two days after Christmas, the time between the crush of celebration and fulfilling commitments to gaining a reprieve before the calendar flips open to the New Year. With Lent just around the corner, the cycle begins again.
Though difficult to admit, prayer has become a blur, another “thing” I do. Longingly, I recall other times when an hour fell free of care and I simply retreated to my quiet place, turned off my phone, closed the door, lit a candle, and melted into silence and stillness. And waited. And perhaps I dozed off, because this is how it is during the holidays for many of us. We want to pray, but we are tired people.
I grow tired of waiting and waiting makes me tired. Waiting as the Verizon agent removes me from being on hold longer than it would take me to wash the dishes and make the bed. She asks me to repeat my question- again. I grow tired of waiting in line at the grocery store, at the eight traffic lights between the store and home, and in the doctor’s office (where the A/C stays on, year-round), sitting on a paper draped table in a wrinkled open-backed gown.
Most of all, I grow tired of waiting on the ding, beep, buzz, and chirrup of whatever device or appliance I am supposed to respond to next. And finally, waiting after I turn out the bedside lamp to see if I will fall asleep.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits. And in His word I do hope. I wait like the sentinel for morning. Psalm 130 is one of my favorite psalms; the psalmist must have been a woman after my own heart.
So today as I turned off my phone and settled back into my chair, everything and everyone put on hold, the waiting finally caught up with me. The restless urge to wrestle free of the demands I place on myself finds it has nowhere left to go. I can feel my heart playing catch up in my chest. I notice my hands twisted together, a prelude to….prayer? I let my fingers unwind and the palms fall open on my lap. I notice my spine, tense and rigid as a lodge pole, the stiffness in my neck and shoulders. I take a deep breath and let it out in one long sigh. I glance down at the prayer list on the footstool, next to the little stack of devotionals, prayer books, my Bible. Everything waits worthily to be read and reflected upon and prayed for.
That’s when the rain begins and a crescendo of a shower pelts the roof overhead. The droplets gather and stream down the window, becoming wavering sheets, watery abstractions. I lose myself to their undulating movement, the sound of the rain reminds me I am not alone. I wait and watch in wonder.
And that’s when I hear the voiceless Voice from somewhere beyond the moment that says, “I have been waiting for you.” Closing the book in my lap, closing my eyes to the world of words and countless other things, I wait for You as You have waited so patiently and longingly for me.
By Noel Poston, Oblate OSB