When I follow along with yoga videos, I have been known to click on the bar to see how much more time there is. We are not talking about a marathon, but still I want to pace myself. Or bolster myself that I have made it to the halfway point.
When Ben and I go to the gym there is a little picture of the route in the corner, so I can
get an idea of how much more pedaling is left. I never say it out loud but inside I am asking, "How long?"
When I am in the dentist's chair, I have no idea whether the whirring and prodding are almost over. My mouth is full of gauze and spit so I cannot speak, but I am grateful when the dentist throws me a bone.
"Almost finished."
There is a story in the book of Revelation where the question comes
up.
"How long?" ask the souls under the altar. The response is not perhaps what they were looking for, in that there is no time line. But they are given white robes. A small consolation for their sense of impatience.
I cannot say how it made them felt. But it does does bring me comfort to know that I am not the only one asking.
Those who trust in the Divine, although they have care for the
morrow, still have it not, because they do not think of the morrow with solicitude, still less with anxiety. Unruffled is their spirit, whether they obtain the objects of their desire or not. And they do not grieve over the loss of them, being content with their lot. If they become rich, they do not regard themselves as more worthy than others. If they become poor they are not made sad. If their circumstances are mean they are not dejected. They know that for those who trust in the Divine all
things all things advance toward a happy state to eternity, and that whatever befalls them in time is still conducive to it.
-Emanuel Swedenborg, Heavenly Secrets 8478
