Skills for the Pandemic: Waiting and the Present Moment

[[Dear Sister, during the lockdown many of us are living now, I know we're all struggling with the same kinds of things. How do we learn to wait for the end to all of this pandemic awfulness and the time when we can resume our normal lives? I've never been all that good with waiting anyway and now as things stretch on without a foreseeable end I think I've lost any ability I ever had to wait!! I just don't feel patient at all. How do you do this? Is it different for you than it is for non-hermits?]]

Thanks for your questions; they are important and I agree that everyone is probably struggling with these or similar questions. This may sound strange but I am convinced that the key to waiting comes from not misunderstanding its nature. I think that rather than waiting for the end to this lockdown and return to normal --- both of which we want but cannot even be sure will happen --- we have to learn to live the life we have this day, this hour. We wait well when our attention is not on the future possibilities (no matter how probable or improbable), but on the present moment right in front of us. There is a paradox here --- as in so many things associated with the Gospel. We wait best when we live our lives right here and right now and allow the "waiting" piece of things to drop away.

Consider Sunday's Feast/Solemnity of the Ascension. The readings were full of references to "Jesus' return" and to the promise of the fulfillment of this New Creation at some unknown time. And yet, the disciples' attention had to be drawn away from the skies and a sense of what would happen one day in some unknown way, and brought back to the world around them where Jesus would surely be found as the one now exalted to the right hand of God.  The language of leaving and returning helps us ready ourselves for a change that has actually happened and can be perceptible with the eyes of faith. What will one day come to be in fullness can only be seen, and in fact, only "waited for" by attending to it now while appreciating its proleptic or very real but also anticipatory quality.

The correlative paradox is that we cease to wait as soon as we begin to look away from the present moment. Think what it is like to wait for a doctor's appointment or in the check-out line in the supermarket. Imagine someone waiting patiently (which really just means waiting). They watch people, perhaps pray for them, allow themselves to take in all of the sights and sounds around them, quietly recheck their list to make sure they have included everything they 1) wanted to talk about or 2) needed to purchase, and then continue on being entirely present to the present moment. Then consider someone "waiting impatiently," (no one  actually waits impatiently; impatience means one has ceased to wait altogether). They wonder what is taking so long, imagine all kinds of reasons, dream about where they might otherwise be, consider how much more important they and their time are than this silly delay seems to indicate is appreciated, etc, etc. This person is not merely impatient with the situation and the world around them (which perhaps goes unnoticed and is certainly unappreciated); they have ceased to live the present moment almost entirely. They no longer wait in any meaningful way.

So what does this mean for those on lockdown or "shelter in place"? To whatever extent you can make future plans, do that, but after you have done that, let yourself live your life as it is in the present. Make sure there is regularity about your days, sufficient rest, work, prayer if that is important to you, and recreation. Limit your consumption of news (and anything else you are tempted to overindulge in!)  If you have time to take on a new project, piece of learning, or hobby, by all means do that. Honor your commitments as best you can. But again you only truly wait by being fully present to the present moment. That's how any meaningful future comes to us, and in fact, it is the way we honor and welcome the future, paradoxical as that seems. This is why we have the sense of the "future" sneaking up on us and waiting taking no time at all when we are engaged in the present. 

All of this is how it is for a hermit or contemplative of any stripe. I admit that in most ways the shelter-in-place has been easier for me than for most because I already live this kind of ""stability". But that is about living in the silence of solitude. Waiting is the same for me as for anyone; there is no special trick here that hermits-only know. Yes, I do try to practice living in the present moment as best I can --- which likely makes waiting easier for me in some ways. I hope this is helpful.