Waiting is the most difficult part of prayer because it presupposes someone or something we are waiting for. And therefore everything is not up to us. We cannot make it happen. We can only be disposed, be ready. What an invitation to humility! What an exercise, some may conclude, in futility! For, unlike a relaxation exercise, or even some prayer-practices, the prayer I am referring to here is not a performance of rituals or postures that guarantee some kind of tangible result-like illumination or heightened awareness. All that this prayer guarantees is patient watchfulness and readiness to receive the touches of God when they are given.
I reach around the mystery
of You, trying to hold on to
something beyond myself.
But You keep fleeing
from my grasp like
a phantom of my own
desires. And then
I stop and let You
come to me and all Your
mystery is tangible
and real, a light
bright presence
in my selfish arms.
How is it with You, Lord?
I’m waiting here,
listening.
—from the book Song of the Sparrow: Four Seasons of Prayer
by Murray Bodo, OFM
