Time is Your Friend

One of our Bishop Visitors was here over the past few days. We have three, and they alternate their visiting. I hadn't had my annual Bishop chat with this one since I was a postulant. Now we don't even use the term. Lots of changes.

Being visited is a little like going for an annual physical. He (or she) takes the pulse of the community, by listening to each sister, one at a time, as she reveals her life, her dreams, challenges, her worries. He then condenses all that information and more or less regurgitates the final results. The EKG, the blood work and the general sense of health are reported.

This year I was first on his list, and neither of us could remember what we'd discussed that first meeting three years ago. I suspect it was more about my former life than this discussion. After three years in formation, I actually had a few things to say about my life as a monastic. I realized that I actually have one, with opinions and preferences and a vision for myself and my community. Where did that come from? (I'm never really sure from one day to the next whether I will ask to take life vows.) How had a vision crept into my heart with all the other confusion and wishy-washyness?

Time is your friend. When he made his assessment of the health of the community, he gave us a few phrases from his home diocese. Time is your friend was one of them. He was speaking directly to our transitional state as a community, but indirectly he was speaking to each of us... to those of us who need more patience with the feet-draggers, to those of us who need more tolerance for the speed-demons. Chaos is the womb of creativity. Nothing worthwhile comes into being without blood sweat and tears. Time creates a vision inside a wishy-washy heart, and time gives the heart room to get used to it.