My word for 2015 is balance. You can hear more about that here, but this morning I've been thinking about, in what ways do I need to create balance? One thing that came to mind was with patience and anticipation. I am not great at patience. I can get really excited about something and want it to happen right then. I can really care about something and then when nothing happens right away convince myself that I don't really care anyway so I forget about it. I can get so caught up in what's to come or what I want to happen that I forget to stay present in the here and now. The more I thought about it, the more I realize I need to create that balance for waiting for what is to come and being fully alive and present in the here and now. I was reading Bread for the Journey by Henri Nouwen and this is what he says about patience:
Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control, the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
This year I want to choose to create balance in such a way that cultivates the discipline of patience. I want to live each moment to the fullest and to be completely present. I want to anticipate the future and dream, but I don't want to try and get away from where I am. I think there's a delicate balance that must be struck between the now and the not yet and it's looking like I may be figuring out what that looks like this year.