Wilderness

It's still Lent. We're still in the wilderness, liturgically. I am still in the wilderness personally, as well. Which is appropriate. Liturgically, we are able to see the resurrection light at the end of the tunnel; personally I get glimpses of light as well, although not the steady shine that beckons and signifies: Come this way! Here is the promised land! It's over here!

Rather, it's an intermittent light that seems to be in this place now and later maybe in a different place. Or maybe that's just my imagination, or my angle of vision has changed while the light's source has not. Or there was just a momentary cloud in front of the shining ray. Or it's just not really where I can see it now. At any rate, I do not have a map out of the place, this wilderness, where I find myself. I need to wait longer, still watching, but in the place of waiting and being open to many possibilities about what it is that I am actually waiting for.

Normally, this is my advice to myself and to others who find themselves in a place of waiting and watching: make hay. Do something new, learn something, take up a new hobby or read that book or organize those photos .... make hay while the sun shines. Life is short. Soon enough the waiting gives way to something else, and that new learning will still be with you. And yet - how does one make hay in the wilderness? Does one have the energy for that?

So, maybe, rather, it is time to lie fallow. Don't do much of anything. Rest. Sit back. Don't push it, get out of that mental taskmaster place that says one must be using one's time productively. Because one can't truly be discerning of the way forward if one is exhausted and "out of gas."

But then again, when one is "out of gas," what helps refill the tank? Just sitting there with an empty tank seems fruitless. And then we're back at the making hay while the sunshines part. Feed yourself; find something that gives some goodie back to you....

And now it has finally dawned on me. There is another way. There is another way that isn't about me doing something or me not doing something (because either way, it's all about me). There is this: sometimes someone will bring you a tank of gas. Someone will see you sitting on the side of the pathway, maybe with your hazard lights on (a look on your face, the sound of your voice, your body language), and know that you are in need, and know what you need.

And they will bring it to you. Gently. Someone will just quietly show up with what you need. They may know to do this because they are incredibly intuitive and caring people; they may know because they've been in the wilderness with an empty tank themselves. It doesn't matter how. It's just incredibly wonderful to know that in those times when you're out there in the wilderness, someone's got your back.