“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.” –Anne Morrow Lidbergh
What gift has come to you when you have been willing to wait without expectation?
In Sweden Santa Lucia, or Saint Lucy’s Day is welcomed in by a girl with a crown of evergreens and candles on her head. January 13 was the solstice in the old, Julian candle, so the day honoring Saint Lucy was a way of ushering in the growing light. But in Sweden you will have to wait quite a long time past December before you will see much of any light at all.
How do you find patience to wait for the light when it is nowhere to be seen?
“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
–T.S. Eliot, from “East Coker”
How do you still your soul when you are impatient for change?
It’s hard to feel like the things we do make a difference. The dishes I wash will be dirty again in a moment, a single call or letter to a legislator has little impact, and more often than not the words of wisdom I impart on my child have no effect at all. Sometimes it helps to take the long view—the really long view—and remember that the Grand Canyon was carved by water and wind one grain of sand (or boulder) at a time.
How do you see that you have shaped the world when you take the long view?
