Tag: being present

Waiting . . .

What are you waiting for?

Waiting is a pause, a looking away from the now, an interval, a delay.

Waiting can be a movement away from mindfulness of the present moment as we wait for something to come that is missing from our life right now. Or it can be a momentary pause to breathe, settle, ground ourselves, and to be ready for what is coming.

I have often wasted time waiting for something to arrive that I thought would make my life better, and in doing so, I have missed seeing or experiencing whatever was happening in the present. I waited for difficult situations to pass, for an expected job offer to arrive, for a tough class to be finished, for the retreat I was preparing for to begin, for the root canal appointment (!) to be over and done with. And the time I spent waiting — at least the time I spent just wishing that whatever I was waiting for would arrive now — was lost time when I was not paying attention to anything but avoiding the present moment.

Waiting sometimes feels like punishment. It is actually avoidance, whether conscious or not. When I began to use spiritual practices like meditation and mindful walking, my awareness of the fullness of the present moment astonished me. What I suddenly heard, smelled, felt in my body, saw all around me was an abundance of life. Birds I hadn’t heard, dappled light changing patterns of color and light and shadow, the distant train whistle, the softness of grass in contrast to the roughness of dry ground, clouds that raced and others that moseyed. I was dazzled and delighted. With my normal future-oriented consciousness (or unconsciousness!) and goal directed pace, I missed so much. And Creation offered so much fullness that I hadn’t seen, touched, tasted, heard, felt.

So, am I now transformed and fully conscious every moment of every day? Far from it. I get distracted by worries and waiting. I settle into a funk now and then. I rush to an appointment without tasting the rain-misted taste of the air. I forget to listen for birdcall or look for what shade of blue or teal or grey the sky is today.

But I find myself waiting much less often for something to happen or arrive. I am better at remembering to pause and breathe and step outside more often to spend a mindful moment just being present. And it changes my day every time I do.

Bliss

I have loved teaching.  I taught in a graduate counseling program that was lodged in a progressive Christian seminary.  By progressive I mean that this seminary was one of the few I know of that is Christian in tradition and that is open (radically open, some would say) to those of a variety of spiritual paths (and no path as well).  The inclusiveness of this seminary is in large part due to two programs and degrees/certificates.  One is a masters degree program in clinical counseling (the one I taught in) that sought to integrate spiritual awareness and psychological counseling skills.  The second is a broad set of programs that offered certificates in spiritual direction and formative spirituality.  The work that we did in teaching, supervising, and mentoring students in both of these programs was sacred.  Students often are drawn to a seminary for study in theology, ministry, chaplaincy.  But few seminaries offer programs in spiritual formation (duh?  why not? but ’tis the truth).  And no one I know looks for a counseling degree leading to licensure in a theological seminary.  So it was always a struggle to get enough students  and our classes were small.

But what occurred in those cohorts was sacred, mystical, transformative.
We graduated Muslim students, Buddhist followers, a Hindu priest, and many flavors of Christian.  Some of our students had not been in church since childhood.  The programs, however, renewed a quest in our students and many returned to their spiritual roots or found other paths that nurtured them in more fulfilling ways.  Throughout the program, students began to change the lenses with which they saw mental illness or life challenges.  They began to see how depression, loss, joy, illness were not just diagnosable using the DSM5, but were also spiritual problems.  They began to see more deeply into patients/clients, and into themselves as well.  They began to attune to the emotions of their patients/clients, and use their own feelings as potential cues to what was happening inside the Other (what is called countertransference in psychodynamic therapy).

I had not expected to write about my teaching or the program I taught in — just to say that I loved seeing the changes in students and felt that in answering God’s call to this work that I was walking the path to which I had been called.

I am now beginning retirement and am starting to experience a blissful feeling of freedom.  For although I truly loved what I did, I am now realizing the burden I carried with me constantly.  .  .the burden of always knowing there was something I could be doing to stay on top of teaching, grading, mentoring.  I have let go of this burden, and it is an experience of feeling lighter, more confident that what comes next is something that I can handle or survive, that I can dwell in a place of delight in being present to experiences without having to pull away and check the to do list of class prep or reading.

I know this won’t last forever and that there will be blips and bunders, but for now . . . bliss it is!