waiting rooms are strange places to build faith
yet people do it constantly.
they sit beneath fluorescent lights that hum like tired hymns. they stare at doors that remain stubbornly closed. they hold appointment slips in trembling hands.
(i have always suspected paper becomes holy when someone is afraid.)
once, in a hospital corridor, i watched a man stand up every time footsteps approached.
sit down.
stand up.
sit down.
as if repetition itself might persuade the future.
as if god (or whoever handles these things) might mistake anxiety for devotion.
he never spoke.
but neither did the woman beside him.
she kept turning a wedding ring around her finger.
gold catching the light.
gold catching the light.
gold catching the light.
i wondered if prayer sometimes looks exactly like this.
not folded hands.
not scripture.
just giving your fear somewhere to go.
when i was younger, i thought faith belonged to people who knew things.
people who spoke about god with the confidence of someone discussing the weather.
people who never lay awake wondering whether heaven was simply another word for silence.
i envied them.
(i still do.)
my relationship with god has always resembled standing outside a locked house.
sometimes i knock.
sometimes i leave.
sometimes i spend years pretending i do not care whether anyone is inside.
then something happens.
someone gets sick.
someone leaves.
someone survives.
someone doesn't.
and suddenly i am standing at the door again.
knocking like i have forgotten every previous disappointment.
which is embarrassing.
there are days i want god to explain Himself.
there are days i want Him to apologize.
there are days i want Him to tell me why some prayers seem to arrive with return addresses while others disappear completely.
mostly, i want to know whether the silence is intentional.
mostly, i want to know whether anyone is home.
(which feels dramatic now that i've written it down.
but then again, so does prayer.)
a friend once told me she didn't believe in god.
three nights later she was sitting beside her mother's hospital bed whispering please.
not to anyone.
not exactly.
just
please.
i think that is how most prayers begin.
not with belief.
with helplessness.
the word leaving the body before the mind has agreed to it.
the way a hand reaches for a railing while falling.
the way a drowning person reaches upward.
the way someone refreshes an inbox at 1:14 a.m.
and then 1:16.
and then 1:19.
as if desire itself might eventually become a key.
the way i still look at my phone sometimes expecting messages from people i have already lost.
(i know.)
(i know.)
there are entire religions built around waiting.
waiting for answers.
waiting for signs.
waiting for forgiveness.
waiting for someone to return.
perhaps that is why waiting rooms feel so familiar.
everyone inside them is practicing the same ritual.
the old man staring at the clock.
the child asleep across three plastic chairs.
the daughter pacing beside the vending machine.
the boy refreshing an inbox.
the woman turning her wedding ring.
each carrying a private prayer.
each pretending not to.
i recognize them because i have been all of them.
not literally.
but emotionally.
i have refreshed inboxes as if persistence could alter outcomes.
i have reread messages looking for hidden meanings that were never there.
i have looked at closed doors and convinced myself they might open differently this time.
faith, it turns out, is not always beautiful.
sometimes it is repetitive.
sometimes it is humiliating.
sometimes it is checking your phone one last time before bed and calling it coincidence.
sometimes i imagine god sitting among them.
not as a king.
not as a judge.
just another person in a plastic chair.
hands folded.
waiting too.
(i don't know what for.)
that thought comforts me more than it should.
because if god is waiting as well,
then perhaps uncertainty is not a punishment.
perhaps it is simply part of being alive.
other days i dislike Him immensely.
other days i think if He wanted to be found, He has had thousands of years to make Himself clearer.
other days i suspect the entire arrangement is unfair.
a universe built around questions.
a species built to ask them.
and no guarantee of answers.
still.
there are moments when i almost believe.
a doctor emerging from a doorway.
a train arriving exactly when it promised.
a name appearing on a screen.
a voice saying,
there you are.
for a second, everything feels held together.
for a second, the universe resembles intention.
then the feeling passes.
but i remember it.
the way people remember miracles.
which is unfortunate.
because once you have felt held,
even briefly,
you spend years searching for the hands again.
perhaps faith is not certainty.
perhaps it is not goodness.
perhaps it is not even belief.
perhaps it is simply this:
continuing to look toward the door.
continuing to listen for footsteps.
continuing to ask questions into the silence.
and somewhere inside the asking,
inside the waiting,
inside the strange and terrible hope of being human,
He is there.
(or He isn't.)
which, strangely,
has never stopped anyone from knocking.