Like most Americans, I don’t really like to wait. Not in line, not in traffic, not really for anything. And waiting to get on the freeway, or into a movie, or for coffee in my favorite bistro really is sort of pointless. When the waiting is done, the payoff is pretty small.
Unfortunately, my lack of being able to wait for small things makes me unable to wait comfortably for the big things such as insight and wisdom, courage and reason. But until I can let go of my desire for instant gratification, I cannot attain the greater joys of life. And that’s hard. And it means I have to wait, and think, and learn to not give in to every whim.
In Ken Burns new film, “The Dust Bowl”, there is a wonderful insight from a survivor of that horrible era of man-made ecological devastation who explains why what happened then, keeps happening again and again. He says, “We want it right now–and if it makes money now it’s a good idea. But if the things we’re doing are going to mess up the future, it wasn’t a good idea. Don’t deal in the moment. Take the long-term look at things.”
Lots of new age gurus and some very serious spiritual folks teach that learning to live in the present moment can change everything. And there is no question that living every moment well is a deeply powerful spiritual practice. I am always trying to be here now and not be tied to the past or too focused on what comes next.
But what will it take for us to resist “dealing in the moment” and giving in to a consumerist culture that will eventually kill us all? Everything I want right now will not serve me (or any of us) well in the future. Some things are worth working towards and sometimes we must keep our eyes on the horizon and our rampant desired in check.
My great-grandparents in the Texas Panhandle were a hearty, thrifty, and rugged bunch. They survived the “dirty 30’s”, World War II and the horrendous drought of the 1950’s. They scrimped, saved, and reused everything. All the “green” practices we are trying to adopt today regularly make me think of my great grandmother who saved foil, mended dresses and shoes, and didn’t think that anything was “disposable”. In her diaries, she accounted for every chick, chicken, and egg in meticulous detail. She wrote down prices for everything and always knew the price of milk (and wheat) to the penny. Waste was an abomination to her because she knew about real deprivation – not just a momentary act of self-restraint.
They used wind chargers on the windmill so that they could have electric light in the evening and rigged up various ways of naturally preserving food to make it through the winter. Having a roasted chicken for dinner meant catching, killing, plucking AND cooking. And after the meal, using the carcass to make chicken and dumplings. No waste anywhere in the whole process.
Personally, I don’t want to go back to a time without easy electricity and to having to kill my own dinner. But I do think that our fast, disposable, and recklessly wasteful ways will not be good for humanity in the long-term. We are “dealing in the moment” and as a nation we have been foolishly squandering our natural world for a long time and there are dire consequences on the horizon.
The season of Advent in the Christian tradition is often described as a time of preparation, gestation, and waiting for the miracle of Christmas. In the Northern hemisphere, the darkness of winter time shrouds this season in mystery. But in churches all over the world, for thousands of years, Advent candles have been lighted to remind believers of the power of light in the midst of darkness.
Waiting is hard and resisting the cultural imperative to quickly get what you want when you want it is also difficult. It’s perhaps even revolutionary. My invitation to myself this Advent season is to pay attention to my own desires for comfort and ease and to be curious about the long term effects of instant gratification upon my soul. Or maybe I will simply learn to wait.