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| Waiting for the Revealing ©Jan Richardson |
This week I discovered Jan Richardson, artist, poet, writer of prayers. I recommend you take some time to look at her work at The Painted Prayerbook.
Another of her blogs is titled, The Advent Door where I found a reflection on waiting and a poem, a prayer, "Blessing for Waiting."
Waiting—and the discernment to which waiting calls us—requires that we clear away what distracts us from seeing clearly. It bids us to make a space in which, in the midst of all the input that comes from those seeking to tell us what we should do, we still ourselves and listen. Making this kind of space can be wrenching, when we are so attached to the things that help us fill our time. Yet this space is rich with possibility and with presence; to use an Advent image, it is pregnant.
“Absence, emptiness, is a bowl of receptivity” writes artist and calligrapher Laurie Doctor. “Often we want to fill it quickly—and then it gets crowded with all kinds of replacements: busyness, self-importance, lists, talking, TV, email, Scrabble. But waiting, active waiting, as if that bowl will be filled with presence as easily as it was emptied, leads us somewhere else.”
How are you waiting? Where is your waiting leading you? In this season, how are you making a space for stillness and for listening, that you might know what you need to wait for and how God is calling you to participate in what God is bringing about?
Read the whole reflection here...
Blessing for Waiting
Who wait
for the night
to end
bless them.
Who wait
for the night
to begin
bless them.
Who wait
in the hospital room
who wait
in the cell
who wait
in prayer
bless them.
Who wait
for news
who wait
for the phone call
who wait
for a word
who wait
for a job
a house
a child
bless them.
Who wait
for one who
will come home
who wait
for one who
will not come home
bless them.
Who wait with fear
who wait with joy
who wait with peace
who wait with rage
who wait for the end
who wait for the beginning
who wait alone
who wait together
bless them.
Who wait
without knowing
what they wait for
or why
bless them.
Who wait
when they
should not wait
who wait
when they should be
in motion
who wait
when they need
to rise
who wait
when they need
to set out
bless them.
Who wait
for the end
of waiting
who wait
for the fullness
of time
who wait
emptied and
open and
ready
who wait
for you
o bless.
- Jan Richardson
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