By Reverend Laurie DeMott

Scattered throughout the days of our lives are many small periods of anticipation, the every day sort of waiting for the ketchup to appear. An approaching birthday excites us with the thought of presents to come. Or we eagerly await the UPS driver who will be bringing the package we ordered three days ago. And of course, there are the more negative anticipations – the anxiety before a trip to the dentist, or the restless waiting for a child to come home from school so that we can have a heart to heart talk with him about the magazine we found under his pillow. (I am, of course, talking about the Atlantic Monthly.) Our lives are full of those momentary waits when it is hard to school our patience to concentrate on the tasks at hand because we are so full of thoughts about the event yet to come, but for even the most impatient among us, such ordinary anticipation is easily dealt with and as easily resolved.

On occasion, however, there are times when our entire life becomes consumed by an anticipation of extraordinary dimension. Maybe something happens that throws your whole future into uncertainty; maybe you are approaching a major phase of change in your life. We know without a doubt that the tomorrow that lies before us will be very different from yesterday, but we don’t know exactly how it will be different or who we will be in that future time. The poet W. H. Auden calls these times of great transition, the “for the Time Being” state: the past is no longer, the future is not yet, and so the most we can say about the present is that we are in it “for the time being”, a phrase that describes that sense of not really being anchored solidly in the present and yet not able to move forward either.

Have you experienced this unsettled state when your entire life is thrown into a period of waiting? Perhaps you have felt it when you received a diagnosis of a disease yet the doctor was not able to immediately give you a prognosis or a plan of action until more tests were done. Many cancer patients describe those first days between diagnosis and treatment as the hardest of all because they know their past identity as a healthy person has been irrevocably lost but they are not yet able to completely envision the future either. For the time being, all they can do is wait and wonder and worry. For many of us, we have experienced the “for the time being” state during periods of transitions when we graduated from high school or college, or changed jobs. For a while, it was as if we were living between two worlds, no longer firmly anchored to the old life we had known yet not completely settled into the new one that would become our home. When people asked us what we were up to, all we could say is, “Well, for the time being, I’m doing such and such…” acknowledging that everything was in flux.

Auden calls living in the “time being” the most trying time of all. I imagine that this is where the disciples found themselves after Jesus’ resurrection – the long days of listening to Jesus and learning at his side were no longer but the promise of the day when they would see him again in fullness had not yet come to pass. The Bible suggests that there was a lot of twiddling of thumbs going on in that fellowship as they tried to figure out what to do “for the time being”. Some went fishing, some reminisced about the good old days over glasses of wine, many prayed…and prayed again… and prayed some more.
And I imagine that as they fished, as they talked, as they prayed, their minds went round and round and round, re-hashing the past, chewing over the thousands of possibilities for the future, unable to light, unable to settle – because that’s what makes the time being the most trying time of all.

There was a fascinating study done recently by some psychologists that struck me as so revealing that I have shared it with a lot of people, so I apologize if you’ve already heard this, but it’s worth hearing again.

A couple of research psychologists created a simple computer game in which players move through levels by choosing doors to open. Each door awards a certain number of points and allows a player to move ahead to a new set of doors. If they don’t like their choice, they can return to an earlier level to try a different door. The only caveat is that a door will only remain unlocked and accessible as long as the player clicks on it periodically – they don’t even have to go through it, they just have to open it now and then – but if they leave it unopened for too long, it will eventually become permanently sealed shut. The researchers deliberately designed the game so that players would achieve the highest score by constantly moving forward and ignoring the doors behind them and the goal of the study was to see how long it would take players to figure out the cost-benefit ratio of returning to earlier doors versus moving ahead. The subjects, however, muddied the results because it turned out that even after players figured out that moving constantly forward was the winning strategy, most players continued to backtrack, taking the time to click their mouse on earlier doors for the sole purpose of keeping them open and accessible. Even when it cost them points, they could not abide the idea of closed doors and lost opportunities.

Living in the time being can be the most trying time of all because we are attempting to hold on to all of the things in the past that we are afraid are being lost to us, while at the same time we are unable to grab on to anything concrete in a future that remains frustratingly uncertain. And so we twiddle our thumbs and pace and rehash the past and gnaw over the possibilities for the future, groaning in our impatience. As Paul put it, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as God’s children, the redemption of our bodies.”

The disciples waited and prayed and fidgeted and groaned and then, on Pentecost, something finally happened. The Spirit descended upon them and they were revitalized and filled with a new purpose.

That is what happened on Pentecost , but it is just as crucial for us to understand what did not happen: The Spirit descended upon the disciples; the Spirit filled them with a sense of purpose and joy; but the coming of the Spirit to the disciples did not end their waiting. They believed that they continued to live in a period of transition between the mortal ministry of Jesus and the future days of glory when they would see him again in fullness. They still dwelt in “the time being”, in the no longer and the not yet when everything would continue to be in flux and the future still only a possibility. The Holy Spirit had come not to bring back the past or propel the disciples finally into their long-awaited future but to redeem their present. The Holy Spirit was there to make their waiting tolerable and more important, meaningful. W. H. Auden says, “The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.... In the meantime, there are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem from insignificance.”

It is not a coincidence that the Holy Spirit is portrayed in the Bible as wind and flame because the Holy Spirit is the presence of God in those times of flux and change when nothing feels completely solid and the path under our feet is shifting. During those times when the future feels uncertain and the past lost, the Holy Spirit swirls about us to swath us in the comforting embrace of God’s presence and remind us that we are not alone. The Holy Spirit gives voice to our sighs and teaches us to speak again. The Holy Spirit is God in the interim, dragging our hearts away from obsessing on the past, pulling our minds out of the clouds of the future, and helping us to focus on the small ways that we can redeem our present time no matter how uncertain it may be.

Leo Tolstey told a story of an emperor who had been searching for a philosophy of life by which he could rule his country in a peaceful way. He thought that he could rule best if he could find the answer to just three questions: “When is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?"

After much searching, the emperor finally arrived at the home of a hermit, renowned for his wisdom, and posed his questions to the man. The hermit, however, remained silent and so, while he waited, the emperor helped the hermit hoe his garden. After many hours of hoeing, suddenly a wounded man stumbled out of the surrounding woods, and the emperor helped the hermit bind the man’s wounds and cared for him through the night. In the morning, the wounded man awoke and confessed that he had planned on killing the emperor when he returned down the mountain but when after hours had passed without sign of the emperor, he came out of hiding and ran right into the emperor’s guards. “And now the one I had planned to kill has saved my own life,” the would be assassin said. “I hereby renounce my actions and dedicate my life to your service.”
The hermit turned to the emperor. “If you had not stayed to help me hoe, this man would have killed you. If you had not cared for him during the night, he would still be plotting revenge. And so now you have the answer to your three questions.”

“I don’t understand,” said the emperor.

“Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person with whom you are, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future. The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at your side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life."

The Holy Spirit is the gift of God to us for The Time Being, the gift of God’s presence comforting our anxious minds, stilling our roaming hearts, and reminding us that no matter what has been or what is to come, the present time is the most important time, the person who is before us right now is the most important person, and the most important pursuit is bringing joy and compassion to that person right now. The Holy Spirit is God in the interim, redeeming the time being from insignificance