Wisdom During Waiting
“To the disciples who were always asking for words of wisdom, the Master said, ‘Wisdom is not expressed in words. It reveals itself in action.’ But when he saw them plunge headlong into activity, he laughed and said, ‘That isn’t action. That’s motion.’”—Anthony de Mello.
Manet Fainting Couch
There is a Greek myth about Psyche and Eros that best describes women’s growth into consciousness. The story is the basis for She by Robert Johnson and Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis. In order for Psyche to reunite with her lover, Eros, she is given several tasks. At the beginning of each task, Psyche collapses and weeps as she sees the task is insurmountable.
My image is Psyche lying on one of those old-fashioned fainting couches that every woman of means once possessed—with her hand turned palm up on her forehead, her eyes closed, and her head leaning backward on or off the couch. It is the feminine body language of surrender and stillness.
Instead of plowing directly into an arduous task before us, the feminine energy in us waits and rests. In the waiting, answers come that are entirely out of the box. They are genuine answers to prayer. Some would say these solutions are received from the Spirit of God within her. Help comes from places she never imagined.
This is wisdom: the action of waiting, stillness, especially before we are asked to do something we do not think we can do.
I remember waiting in an outer office before a difficult meeting with other physicians. At first, it upset me that I, this important person, had to wait! But, slowly, I realized the waiting was a gift, wisdom from a mysterious source. It was a time to quiet myself, surrender to the moment, and be still before going into this challenging meeting. When I could do this, I carried with me the feminine energy of staying in relationship with those around me. This made all the difference.
We often find ourselves today in a waiting period. We wait in “waiting rooms.” We wait for boosters. We wait for a cure for cancers and forms of dementia. We wait for rain. We wait for rebuilding from tornadoes, hurricanes, and fires. We wait for all our children to be vaccinated and no longer hungry. We wait for our lives to return to what we once considered normal. We wait to spend more time with our children and our grandchildren.
Macrina Wiederkehr1 suggests a way to honor waiting in our lives. She tells us to put “pause” on our to-do list several times.
All this can be seen as a precious time or an anxious time. We have a choice.
1Macrina Wiederkehr in Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day (Sorin Books 2008), p. 20.
Joanna Seibert. Joannaseibert.com