On waiting.

I had forgotten all about the existence of this blog. This is great! I don't have to go through the painful process of registering and setting up. Just change my profile picture and lay out, and bam. Good ol' blogger, your name might be changing, but you have waited and I have returned a few years later to continue to lay out my thoughts on theology and spirituality. I'm kind of excited, yet I am completely putting myself out on the open for criticism. Which of course, (if it is good), I will try to accept graciously.

My best friend Andrew has been waiting. He was telling me that he was waiting for his car to come out of the shop from its extended  vacation, waiting for a background check to come through, and waiting to hear back from a new job.

I am in my own season of waiting. I did not make it into any of my wait-listed classes (the classes you have to wait to know if you are registered for, and praying that the first 10 people on the list don't show up). So, my academic goals are being placed on hold for another fives months, another five months being counted towards the fact that I am twenty-six and degree-less. Anyway.

Western culture, especially the younger generation, is not fond of waiting. We are instant-gratification driven.The more we can do in less of time, the better. But as human experience will show, waiting in the line at the bank Friday at noon is completely different from waiting to be a parent for the first time. I do think there is a difference between waiting in the profane, and waiting in the sacred.

I have no formal training, but I'm sure I could find someone to cite the fact that waiting is a huge spiritual theme in Judaism and Christianity. Judaism waits for the great "clean up" of the world through the coming of the Messiah and/or the return to the Holy Land. Christianity waits for the the return of Christ the Messiah and/or the Kingdom of God/Heaven. Both waitings have an idea of who, what, how. But not when.

I didn't bother to count, but Strong Exhaustive Concordance dedicates almost a whole page to the words "wait", "waiteth", and "waiting" (160 times according to wiki.answers.com). It's easy to recall how many psalms and other Prophet spoken passages mention something along the lines of "This is what is happening, and it sucks. But if you wait on God, then God will act".

I'm thinking a theology of waiting is more than a conditional statement. Waiting involves letting go of the condition all together.  "If I make it into my classes, then I will be one step closer to a degree." Of course, I need my classes. But the motivation for school is is driven by the goal of graduating and moving on. The condition of my situation has not happened, but if I really believe that God has some sort of influence in my life, and I am doing the things I should be doing, then for right now the condition doesn't even matter.

In the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent, the theme of waiting is accompanied by anticipation or expecting. I hate to challenge hundreds of years of Church practice, but when applied to every day life, this doesn't cut it. Anticipation and expectancy put ones eyes on the future. Anticipation and expectancy almost put the power in our own hands, when that power is not ours to begin with.

Waiting puts the power back in the hands of the divine. Waiting admits that there is little or next to nothing we can do until whatever "it" is happens. Waiting may not look to the future as much as it does to hope.

I'm also waiting for a boyfriend, but that is a whole other post coming.