There is a quiet solace in the sleepy air that envelops a tropical afternoon at the year-end, when the weather is cool and kind, the soft skies are heavy with clouds and the rain drives in gentle or sharp torrents, Here, the sleeping dog lies, bolstered by the faith that with evening, her proverbial daily bread will be realized. Here, her senescent strands stand out as testament to the ravages of Time, of past service as a beast of burden (she was a uniformed-services working dog), a gentle ease into the night in retirement.
Meanwhile, the Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinenesis) opt to nestle within the shadows of the Dwarf Peacock, as it dries and preens, Its eyes glazes over, cocooned into a stupor beneath its nictitating membrane, as it too waits out the rain, to opportunity to venture out again.
Elsewhere, the flora enjoy their moment of respite from the work of photosynthesis, as the flowers of the Honolulu creepers, Heliconia rostrata and the gentle H. psittacorum drink in the rain droplets as they coalesce, trickle and fall through the jagged supporting caste of fronds and folds.
The brown-throated Sunbirds meanwhile gather nectar, impatient to continue the work of the day as they start and flutter, silhouetted against an overcast sky.
The tension of awakening and waiting is at once timeless and tiring.
It was the late Henri Nouwen who wrote that waiting is not a comfortable pastime; it brings about apprehension, partly borne culturally of fear, in anticipation of the worst. He wrote that it was far more tempting to act than to wait, and exemplified the dwindling remnants of the faithful who continued to wait for the promises to come, the Messiah to come. Fr Nouwen described the beauty of the wait of our Lady in the Annunciation, the companionship of Mary, Elizabeth and Zechariah in their wait together in the Visitation, and the hopeful awakening of wait, fulfilled in the Incarnation.
He wrote that “those who were waiting had each received a promise that gave them courage and allowed them to wait, They received something that was at work in them, a seed that had started to grow.”
Our wait is reciprocated in God’s wait for us, and in the waiting for others to Act upon Him, an expression of the Passion of Christ. Fr Nouwen’s monograph on the spirituality of waiting, published posthumously in Finding My Way Home (Crossroad, 2001) is a beautiful piece that challenges us to believe patiently for the Good that is to come, in such forms and shapes as not to be of our own making or planning.
(Lumix G85; Olympus Zuiko 75-300mm; 2018 November)
(Henri JM Nouwen. The Path of Waiting in Finding My Way Home. 2001. The Crossroad Publishing Company)