A Wrinkle in Time

Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time traveling. Traveling to Detroit, New York, Africa 

and beyond.  When waiting to catch a plane to South Africa for the International Seminar for State Officers I had some time to journal my thoughts and I would like to share some of those thoughts with you.

Spending time at the airport  makes me feel a certain type of way, almost like I am living in 

the space between what happened and what is about to happen. This thought then leads me to think of Christmas and the Season of Advent which some of us recently experienced. Advent is also seen as a period of waiting, or preparation.

This feeling doesn’t only come when I am in the Airport waiting for a flight, it also seems to 

appear the moment before the exam is passed out, while on the bus or at other times. I also 
think that this feeling represents a phase or time period we often experience in our lives.  Below

is a quote from my pastor that I found while scrolling through my facebook timeline.

“It was the waiting, the suspension in time, the pregnancy of the moment that caught me 

today and again brought me to my knees. A wrinkle in time. I was not so keen on waiting 
today, much as I love Advent. It did not resolve itself cleanly, or easily, or beautifully. The 
beauty of advent is that it doesn’t demand easy resolution. The hard, messy moment simply 
was, and is.”

This was the evidence I needed to confirm that others are aware of these periods of waiting, 

these times of uncertainty. Her mentioning that it felt like a wrinkle in time, reminded me of afavorite childhood book of mine. In the book there is talk of time travel. The idea behind 
traveling of any kind, is that the fastest way to get there is a straight line. A line from point a 
to point b.

We often see our journeys - paths to reach our goals, the progression of earning a degree - as astraight line. Point A - where we decide to do something and Point B where it happens. 
Straight line Right?

In reality the line tends to be not so straight.  Often it involves waiting. Waiting for the right moment, waiting for an email or waiting for your hard work to pay off.

I think the key to capturing the moment, to getting to point b, is to embrace the waiting. A 
Wrinkle in Time states: “I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learnedis that you don't have to understand things for them to be.”

What if we begin to allow things to just “be” ? The next big thing doesn’t have to happen 
tomorrow, just know that tomorrow is going to happen either way and you can either choose 
to make it a big day or you can choose to wait for the next big thing.

With the start of a New Year, we were all eager to make our resolutions and make this year 
the most successful in terms of progress towards ‘living our best lives’. What if we reframe 
our thinking? Instead of trying to race from point a to point b, we learn to trust the process?

What if we begin to see that change does not have to be in an instant, it doesn't have to be 
clean or easy or beautiful. Sometimes life happens in the waiting. 
Let’s choose to embrace that.

Stationed Beneath the Rising Sun,

Grace Taylor