Stillllll Waiting.

Stilllll Waiting.

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

John Milton, Sonnet 19

Waiting…Waiting…Waiting…Waiting….  Waiting in line, waiting at a light, waiting for a call, or a letter, or word from a friend in trouble.  Waiting for the coffee to brew, waiting for the toast to pop up, or for a pain pill to kick in.  All of these random thoughts, these examples have come to my mind as experience of the helplessness of waiting share one blessing.  Something’s gonna happen, eventually.  We’ll get to the front of the line, the light will

change, the call will come, or the letter will arrive, or the friend will contact us.  The coffee will finish brewing, the toast will pop up, and the pain pill will eventually kick in.  We hope.

But what about the state of mind and heart when we know that we are diminishing, when we know that we will never get “better”, when, like Milton reflecting on his blindness, we sit in the reality that we are on the declining end of our lifeline?  Does God exact day-labor, light denied?   Milton’s blindness has called from his heart this question.  What is the meaning of my life in my diminished state?  It ends in a line often quoted, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” 

We read facile articles of octogenarians who motorcycle and centenarians who polka, but there is in many of us who are aging the dull pain of aging, of disability and disengagement.  We are not needed as we were.  Whoever or whatever we served in our ascendency seems to be getting along more and more on its own while we decline.  What are we waiting for?

But in the middle of this, I smile.  In my youth, I was a waiter.  And the Scriptural passage about the servant who watches the hand of the Master comes to mind.  The good attendant is the one who notices when we need to lift our glass high to drink; it means that it needs to be refilled before it is empty.  A good attendant notices when we place our silverware across the plate that we may be finished, and asks to remove it.  I enjoyed the tension of the job, standing in attention, ready to move quickly as needed, literally on my toes.

One of our dearest physically departed friends remains with me, reminding me at times like this of a stanza from his favorite poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  .  The poem remains an enigma to me, as mysterious as his now invisible life, I as unable to see him as Blake was unable to see the world. 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool

So, my friends (also) diminished by whatever kind of blindness that aging or disability or retirement provide, I give you these two poets, and the Scriptural passage you might be able to reference for me, to suggest that waiting is not as passive and desperate as we might think.  The labor that God exacts from us is drawn not from what is gone, but what remains.  Milton went on well beyond this sonnet on his blindness, not only poetry to his friends, but long treatises to Parliament.  T. S. Eliot frees us from the big parts in life’s play, from repeating the accomplishments that put certificates on our wall, or photos of young families.  His poem seems to me (in my life’s mirror) to be a song of love for himself as less than he had imagined or fantasized, of accepting himself as he is, and looking forward to life as an attendant.

So come on! On your toes!

 FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.