The God of Anticipation

“Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life,” Simone Weil famously said, a quote I have used several times in my writings. But I wonder if she would be satisfied with this translation. In her “Spiritual Autobiography,” a letter to a Roman Catholic priest, she declares that the Greek word for “steadfastness” is “more beautiful” than the Latin word for patience, derived from the word for suffering. And one of my favorite biblical descriptions of God highlights his/her/their “steadfast love.”

Perhaps “waiting steadfast* in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life” is a better rendering of her insight. “Steadfast in expectation” sounds like “anticipation” to me.

I stretch this quote because of an “aha” I’ve recently experienced. God is a God of anticipation for me right now—anticipation of the end of the pandemic, but also anticipation of the end of my life.

We see this God of anticipation in our biblical tradition.

“I will be what I will be,” Moses hears from the blazing wilderness shrub as Yahweh commissions him to deliver a message to Pharaoh to “let my people go.”

“Behold I am doing a new thing,” Yahweh says through Isaiah.

“Follow me,” Jesus invited.

“I have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, you will be guided into all the truth,” Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper. “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there you may be also.”

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth,” Jesus said in his final parting.

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” the mystic John testified of God’s future. “See, the home of God is among mortals.”

The kingdom or commonwealth of God is even now revealing itself to us. I witness a parallel in the Tao of Taoism and the “thin places” between heaven and earth in Celtic spirituality.

Recently I was quite taken with an ending of a prayer of an MCC pastor and leader that went something like this, “in the names of how you have been experienced in the past and the names of how you will be experienced in the future.”

Anticipation lifts us up. Etty Hillesum, who died at Auschwitz, wrote in her diary that she thought of God as her best self. My own experience is that simply the thought of God lifts me to my better self.

Undoubtedly a spin from my Process theology view—as I reflect on the universe, I see a process that anticipates life, that anticipates sentient beings who make the universe aware of its very existence, how it came to be, its possible meanings, as well as its hope for deliverance from its own destructive elements, whether viral as in a pandemic, or human when we disregard one another and our environment.

That process is how I am thinking of God in these difficult days.

*I chose not to use the seemingly more appropriate word “steadfastly” because it applies to the following phrase “in expectation” rather than the previous word “waiting.”

Recent posts that offer hope during our pandemic:

The Pandemic’s Monastic Opportunity

The World Is My Cloister

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Copyright © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. 

On the Threshold of the Church

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

Perhaps the best known quote from Simone Weil is “Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” But few know that she purposely chose to wait on the threshold of the church rather than enter to the exclusion of anything God loves.

To “wait for the Lord” is the advice of the Psalmist. To be patient is to endure, advice Jesus gave his disciples, as stamina is a necessary gift in the spiritual life. And to expect is to watch for and be open to those thin places where we may catch a glimpse of the eternal.

Simone Weil was a young French Jewish woman who lived during the first half of the 20th century. She earned a doctorate in philosophy and began a teaching career, continuing to study religion, especially Hinduism and Christianity. She was a social activist who decided to leave academic life to work in a factory in solidarity with underserved factory workers. A pacifist most of her life, she supported in peaceful ways resistance movements in the Spanish Civil War and then her own German-occupied France. The French novelist Andre Gide called her “the most spiritual writer of this century,” and Albert Camus designated her “the only great spirit of our time.” Her health was always a challenge, and her solidarity with those suffering in her native France led to an early death in 1943 at the age of 34.

In her “Spiritual Autobiography,” a letter to a priest, she explains why she did not join the Roman Catholic Church:

I have never once had, even for a moment, the feeling that God wants me to be in the Church. … So many things are outside it, so many things that I love and do not want to give up, so many things that God loves, otherwise they would not be in existence.

And here she refers to all that is outside the church: the centuries of human history that preceded the establishment of the church, other countries and races where Christianity is not embraced, secular life, “traditions banned as heretical,” and “all those things resulting from the Renaissance,” which would include the Enlightenment. Thus she concludes that she must remain where she has been since birth, “at the intersection of Christianity and everything that is not Christianity”:

I have always remained at this exact point, on the threshold of the Church, without moving, quite still, en hupomene (it is so much more beautiful a word than patientia!).

The latter is Latin for patience, which is related to the Latin word for suffering, but she prefers the Greek (here transliterated by me) en hupomene, which means to “endure, hold out, and stand firm,” a far more active stance.

Personally I have often found myself in that same place, hanging with others on the threshold of the church, the margins of institutionalized religion, standing firm with Simone Weil to keep the doors of the church wide open to all that God loves. After all, that’s where Jesus would be.

This weekend in Pittsburgh, PA - Hear and meet Chris at these public events:

Fri. Dec. 9, 7 p.m., Sixth Presbyterian Church, speaking on “Reconciliation.”

Sat. Dec. 10, 10:30-Noon (light lunch included), Covenant Presbyterian Church, Butler, PA, speaking on “Bullying is Not Just About Youth!” Butler LBGTQ Interfaith Network, Persad Center's Community Safe Zone, Butler Chapter of PFLAG.

Sun. Dec. 11, 10:45 a.m. Community House Presbyterian Church, sermon.

Sun. Dec 11, 7:00 p.m., MCC Pittsburgh, sermon (different from sermon above!).

Sponsored by Ministry with Sexual Minorities, A Task Force of Pittsburgh Presbytery.

Miss the Rapture?

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

I don’t know how long I have, as I am writing this on May 21st, which billboards in my city declare is the day of the rapture, when the saints of God will be caught up in heaven with Jesus and the world will begin its final tribulations.

Of course, writing this is pointless, as there will be no readers to see this post, scheduled for Wednesday, as the God I believe in will leave no one behind.

In honor of this day, last night we watched the film 2012 about the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world. Unfortunately, we were too tired to finish watching it, and now there’s probably not enough time.

Occasionally I have found myself in conversation with others who were taught about the rapture as children. Everyone has their own stories about how they handled this terrifying and traumatizing bit of Christian teaching, sharing them like veterans exchanging war stories. I, for one, feared being cast down into the pit of hell, but at the same time feared being caught up in the skies with Christ because of my fear of heights.

Someone from a small town once told me that, if he or any of his friends discovered their parents gone from the house unexpectedly, they might fear the worst—that their parents had been raptured and they themselves had been left behind. Together these friends came up with a plan in such an event: they would call, say, Mrs. Smith, the most saintly person they knew, and if she answered her phone, they knew the rapture had not occurred.

The “Left Behind” series exploits this fear of God’s eternal abandonment. I have heard that recent books in the series have become slow and plodding—stretching out the publishing viability of additional volumes. My attitude toward those who misconstrue Jesus and the Book of Revelation is “Leave already!”

Truth is, we are more likely to abandon God than the other way around.

Our dog Hobbes could write her own “left behind” series. We leave her behind when we go to work or the store. We leave her behind when we go out to dinner. We left her behind with a friend when we went to Chile for a visit. She is constantly being “left behind,” but she knows that when we return, things will be better. She’ll receive a pat on the head and a rub on the tummy. She’ll be fed and get to climb up on the bed. She’ll walk in the park with us and join me for morning prayers on the deck.

That’s the sort of thing we should be looking forward to. Simone Weil wrote, “Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” In expectation of the good, I would add.

How Hobbes looks when "left behind."