Waiting

Clock ticking, seconds dragging, minutes tugging and pulling, pressing on your expectancy or anxiety. I'm not sure society really can accept or be at peace with the reality of waiting, especially in a society where getting things completed and accomplished is the idol so many of us struggle not to worship and find ourselves bound to. I struggle in the waiting almost every day, worrying about what isn't getting done, stressing about details, impatient in expectancy for the good stuff, wishing for less laboring and more fruit. Where does the restlessness come from, this disturbance of peace and tranquility, this invader that drags confusion and despair in its wake? Where does the need to finish quickly and move on to the next thing to finish quickly, sliding through inconvenience after inconvenience, as though trying to keep our hands clean and our muscles as little used as possible; we yearn for pleasure, yet when it comes we experience it so quickly we don't really soak in the moments. 

I set up a clothesline in my backyard recently for all my little one's many cloth diapers that need drying. I have a dryer, but where is the experience in throwing damp clothing into dryer? Standing barefoot in the grass, sun beating down on my head, hands snapping clothes pins into place, I found a sudden peace in the methodicalness of it all, the slowness, the absence of efficiency. There is something beautiful about wet cloths on a clothesline. Something mystical. I'm not sure if its the sun-bleached smell or the damp slap of material against bare skin as the autumn breeze lifts the diapers. Diapers make me think of baby boy growing by the pound every month just under my skin. Only inches away, but completely invisible, accept to sonogram machines of course. Talk about expectantly waiting. Anxiously waiting. Unlike the stereo typical expressions I've heard throughout my life of women who feel the longer their baby inside the womb the safer and more protected they feel the infant is. I feel the completely the opposite. During the months of pregnancy I feel out of control and often battle fear for this tiny human being that is living inside of me who I cannot see or touch. What is happening inside the inner chambers of my physical body, what magical alignment of expanding cells and developing organs is taking place, what is this little soul feeling and experiencing? Despite the intimacy of our closeness, I still feel separated by a wall of flesh and tissue. What I cannot see often attacks me with worry. The waiting is often agony. How do I find the joy and peace of expectancy? Is it somewhere in the tension between mystery and reality, trust and truth?

I hang diapers on a line and feel baby boy kick and wish I could see his face and then remember he still is being formed in his mother's womb by the masterful Creator of the universe. I probably don't want to hurry up that process. We all just might miss out on something far grander and mystical than we could every imagine.