"Waiting"

Blog Post #13

"Waiting on the Shore" Norman Rockwell

¹wait

 verb \ˈwāt\

gerund or present participle: waiting

: to stay in a place until an expected event happens, until someone arrives, until it is your turn to do something, etc.

: to not do something until something else happens

: to remain in a state in which you expect or hope that something will happen soon

Waiting is difficult. 

I confess: I’m not very good at it, even though I’ve practiced my whole life.

Some years back we moved into a new subdivision. While planting strawberries on the slope between our house and the house next door, our neighbor, Chirin (originally from India), saw me and came over to chat. After talking about the strawberries, she shared an observation: “Americans seem to like instant things. In India, we plant seeds and wait for them to grow. Here, people buy mature plants and have instant gardens!” She talked about the pleasure she found in the process of planting, nurturing, and waiting for the seed to bring forth fruit.

We moved from that neighborhood many years ago, but her observation, like a tiny seed planted in my mind, germinated and grew over time. Chirin was right. We often do look for shortcuts, and we lose something when we don’t wait. Something important.

When I was a child, my parents bought a home in a new subdivision—the very home I’m now living in fifty years later. My parents loved the quaint little collegiate village they were settling in. It had a small town feel away from the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles. The streets, lined with lofty trees touching leaf and branch across neighborhood streets like old friends shaking hands, remain picturesque and inviting today. The founders of the town planted these trees in the 1890s and early 1900s with the anticipation that they would one day beautify the town they loved so well.  Their efforts are realized in the lush greenery that now canopies the town with shade during hot summer months and that adds character and dignity to the college atmosphere during leafless winters.

A tree-lined street in my home town

We made weekly visits to our developing property located in a newer section of town. Orange and lemon groves were removed to make way for housing. At first, the tract was nothing but a stepped sea of grey dirt, level and barren, except for posts and flags marking lots, and an occasional tumble weed bouncing by. Next, cement slabs appeared, followed by a framework of timber. Week by week, we watched as the lot transformed into a skeleton of wood and stone, and then, into a home. There was value in this watching and waiting and anticipating. As our home was developing, so was an important aspect of character: patience.

 pa·tience

noun   [pey-shuhns]  

1.     the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

2.     an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.

3.     quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.

When we were young, and wanted something, we were encouraged to save for it. We did chores, babysat and saved our allowance in order to, eventually, buy what we wanted. We were planting seeds of patience each time we went through this process. Sometimes, this meant working and saving, and sometimes it meant planning and creating. But we learned that dreams were attainable with work, perseverance and patience.

The art of "waiting" is perfectly illustrated in a favorite line from the musical The Music Man. Professor Harold Hill smooth-talks Widow Paroo into buying a cornet and band uniform for her son Winthrop. When clinching the deal, he tells her:

“…there won’t be a penny due till delivery, which gives him four weeks

to enjoy, to anticipate, to imagine, at no cost whatever….”

Widow Paroo & Professor Hill

Professor Hill giving Winthrop
his long-anticipated cornet

4 weeks of waiting rewarded!

When things come instantly, there isn’t time to “enjoy, to anticipate and to imagine”—all invaluable aspects of waiting. Joy in arriving at a destination, or achieving a goal, consists of 80% anticipation. 

Imagine not having to wait nine months for a baby to arrive. Those nine months are not only a necessary chunk of time for development on the baby’s part, but also for the would-be parents. Planning and preparing take time. But the dreaming about and anticipation while waiting add a measure of joy and excitement that culminates only when the precious package arrives! There is wisdom in God-given waiting.

Waiting is thrust upon us throughout life: we wait for an infant to learn to walk, to grow a tooth, or to say ‘mama’ or ‘papa’; we wait for a child to ride a bike, to drive a car, and to graduate from high school. We wait for a first date, for a job, and for a paycheck to arrive. We wait for good health when ill, for a dentist appointment to be over, for a letter to arrive in the mail. And as we age, we wait for children and grandchildren to visit, and ultimately, for death to send us home to God and loved ones beyond the veil of life. Life is about waiting. How we wait determines if we are happy or grumpy, prudent or foolish, faithful or inconstant. 

As with the rest of our town, our street was planted with parkway trees. Unlike the large oaks, elms and eucalyptus trees found in the older section of town, ours were scrawny pepper trees. Returning from the village on many occasions, my sister and I expressed our desire for our pepper trees to arch across the street like they did in the older part of town. We waited and waited. In the meantime, one or two of the trees on our street became diseased and were replaced by silk trees. Sometimes large branches were torn off by the wind. Our children climbed in the pepper trees, hanging from the branches like monkeys in the rainforest. In summertime, they covered our cars with cooling shade, and shielded us from the burning sun as we walked to the park.

Trees in the older part of our town

 Recently, I was driving home from the older part of town when I noticed the trees in front of our house were touching leafy fingers with those across the street! It took fifty-two years, but it had finally happened! And it happened when I wasn’t expecting it, and when I wasn’t looking. It happened while all kinds of wonderful life events danced beneath them. The trees needed time to grow and develop, and so did I. All the years of enjoying, imagining and anticipating were fulfilled.

 

Trees in front of our house

My lessons in waiting and patience have grown with the trees in our neighborhood. There's no rushing the growth of a tree, and the same is true for me. It takes time to grow and develop into a mature plant, and into a mature adult. But life's lessons were being learned through every stage of life--youth, adolescence and adulthood. Through joy and sorrow, broken limbs, and broken hearts, wind and storm, sun and rain, through celebrations and pain of death. Like the trees, I am learning what it means to reach across barriers and touch others with friendship, to recognize and share those gifts that are uniquely mine, and to wait patiently and anticipate tomorrow's joys while living fully today. 

“The key to everything is patience.

You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.”

 - Arnold H. Glasgow

 

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”

Fulton J. Sheen

© Copyright July 17, 2014

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