Cultivating the condition of waiting

It’s important for us to cultivate this condition of waiting. And of course, that’s a question of practice as well. That’s why the two periods of meditation practice in a regular faithful way are important, because that is how this state of mind or this attitude of waiting is developed. ‘Be of good courage,’ it says in Psalm 27. ‘Be of good courage. Whoever waits for the Lord shall renew their strength.’ (Ps 27:14) ‘Whoever waits for the Lord will renew their strength.’ In other words, we find that meditation helps to refresh us, to renew us, it gives us more energy. What is happening is that as we take down the wall of the ego and we instead begin to relate to reality directly, we are redirecting the energy of consciousness from fantasy, from virtual imagination to the real, from ego projects to contemplation and to the other. So we become more intuitively other-centred. We move from the instinct to acquire and control to the capacity to enjoy. St Thomas said ‘simple enjoyment of the truth’ – that is how he defined contemplation.

The Art of Waiting, Laurence Freeman