Waiting Rooms

Went to the physician for a checkup this week.  Glad it was no emergency.   

Is there any more annoying, exasperating experience in "civilized" life than being at the wrong end of an interminable, serpentine line of humanity?

Of course, the slowest and most frustrating lines occur at all our very "favorite" places.  Like waiting behind Aunt Blanch at a Quick  Check as she attempts to discern whether she should, along with her Virginia Slims, purchase : “Texas two-steps? Happy Heart Cash? Double Blackjacks? “3X Lucky?” “Yellow Rose of Texas?” or the ever popular “Groovy Cash” and the can’t live without “Set for Life?” - and she's paying by rummaging through her coin purse.

If I were to fall down the steps and hear a sickening crunch as I land, bet that a trip to the hospital emergency room would be in my future. Bet, too, that when I  got there, for some reason, I’d find the place looking like Wal-Mart during Black Friday in November  - add a few squalling babies, bleeding do-it-yourselfers, frightened wheezing great- grandfathers, all of them in desperate need -- and all of them ahead of me and my shattered hip.  I once waited in a triage line at a New Orleans hospital during Marti Gras- never made it through the door - waited in the street until I stopped bleeding & decided to put some cole oil & cow salve on it  - and called it a day.  Still have the scar.  No wonder the mood of the ER is surly, snappish and snarling.

Other infamous waiting rooms? That day-devouring line I have faced at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Why does it seem like it is the goal of all DMV employees to force you to stand in every single one of their mystery lines -- keeping secret just which one I really need to be in? Or have you ever had the pleasure of going to the unemployment office? I have.  In addition to suffering the depression and desperation that come with joblessness, I got to endure hours in a humiliating line-up, just to get the chance to prove I was really still out of work. Still not as bad as waiting behind Aunt Blanch and her coin purse. Or waiting in line at the post office? Right?

Fax machines, microwaves, Federal Express overnight deliveries, express check-out lanes (I've blogged about this before - I must have "issues" with this)-- all these postmodern conveniences testify to the fact that I hate to wait -- for anything. I  have so many demands on my time, so many things going on, such a busy, busy, busy life  that I consider any time spent waiting as time hopelessly lost.

Amazing  thing - Jesus took advantage of every circumstance to demonstrate God's love and presence. For Jesus, every moment was open to transcendence -- Sabbath "waiting" - a day wandering in a grain field,  fruitless fishing expeditions, time spent waiting by a Samaritan well, the hours before his arrest and execution -- all were times equally ripe for God to use him as a messenger proclaiming the Good News.

Ironically, it could be my impatience with waiting rooms that might finally teach me how to make the most of every moment. The age of fiber optics and microchips have converted all kinds of waiting rooms into work rooms.  This week I used the time to write this blog. (Not so sure it was the BEST use of time - but definitely better than phone surfing.)  Laptop computers have made airplanes and hotel rooms offices-on-the-road for workaholics like me. Next-Generation Phones make it possible to be completely accessible to any caller at any time. The "waiting room" that has been utilized the best, however, is in that American home-on-wheels -- the automobile. Add the XM Satellite Radio, and now even microwaves available for my car - I practically need a traffic jam in order to get a chance to put all my gadgets to good use. (Dreaming here – don’t have all those in my little Honda with 385,000 miles – don’t even have a radio – so – my car IS a waiting room.)  Anyway - I can close a big deal, e-mail a contract and celebrate with a hot pizza, all while waiting in line at the freeway off-ramp – now that’s living.

All this while “waiting” for the Doc to draw my blood.  Just a thought but when I spend every waking moment attending only to the business of business, I ignore spiritual needs. By putting off prayer until Sunday morning, confining thankfulness to a quick grace before meals, squeezing joy into he few weeks of the Christmas or Easter season, I confine faith to a waiting room.

Not sure what that all this means – but it sounds profound.  But I am willing, I think, to wait and find out.  Time...will tell - I'm sure of that and - I'm willing to wait, but not sure if I am willing to wait in "The Waiting Room." Just sayin'