The stature of waiting

"My soul is waiting for the lord
and in his name I trust,
more than a watchman for the morning,
more than a watchman for the dawn.
More than this my soul is waiting,
waiting for the lord" Adrian Snell - Out of the deep (Ps 130)

Reflecting on what I wrote the other day about being in the middle state between "To be and not to be" I recalled to mind some words of Henri Nouwen. He has quite a lot to say about waiting:

Waiting is active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? You cannot do anything about it, so you have to sit and wait.

But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who wait are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. That's the secret. The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment in the conviction that something is happening where you are...

It brought to mind the title of a book I've seen on my mother's bookshelf. The Stature of Waiting (W H Vanstone). This morning as I was reading some more from Nouwen I find him quoting that very book. Perhaps I need to borrow that one as well!

As I reflected further the following came to mind: "I know not that for which I trust, but I know him in whom I trust". It sounds like a mangled quotation - but if it is I cannot find who said it. It does, however, sum up where I find myself.