Waiting

I was recently invited to read "Here You Are" at the Seattle Children's Hospital. A four-year-old little girl sat down with me on a red couch, excited about such a shiny, colorful book she knew I was going to give to her as a present. I started reading and when we read the "Why am I here" page she told me she was here for waiting. As we moved on to the Wondering pages, she said she was wondering whether her Dad would ever come home. That he keeps leaving and coming back, but that he hadn't come back in a long time. We just wondered together about it in silence for a while. I was wondering about the circumstances her family might be in. Was it a divorce, a soldier Dad away on duty, or something else? We were strangely OK without answers, both of us, while looking out of the window next to us, with the leaves on a tree blowing in the wind outside. After a nice moment of silence and waiting we read the rest of the book that she seemed very satisfied with. She proudly held her new shiny book with her right arm that barely fit around it, while holding on to her rolling lillie-pad IV stand with her left as she left the playroom.

It reminded me of Osho, an Indian Mystic, who once said:"For those who can wait infinitely, things happen instantaneously." One of my favorite statements about enlightenment.