ISSUE No. 51 | NOVEMBER 2024
WELCOME
If you’re new to CULTIVARE we welcome you! CULTIVARE is a monthly field guide for life and faith, brought to you by TEND. Each month we explore a specific “field” – a topic or theme through which we seek to cultivate contemplation, engagement, and deeper understanding. Our guiding questions are:
What are you cultivating in your life?
What fruit do you want your life to bear?
Each issue of CULTIVARE is structured into three parts:
Cultivate: Examines a specific “Field” or facet of life and offers questions to unearth and challenge our held perspective; along with concise kernels of truth which we call “Seeds.”
Irrigate: Explores the ways we nurture our understanding, which varies from individual to individual. We offer six means of irrigation: Art, Poetry, Profile, Film, Essay, and Books.
Germinate: Encourages practical ways to engage in becoming more fruitful and free in our lives.
Our name, CULTIVARE, in Spanish means “I will cultivate.” We hope each issue of our field guide will encourage you to do just that – cultivate new thoughts, actions, faith, hope, and fruitful living. We invite you to dig in and DIG DEEP!
FIELD
For we are partners working together for God, and you are God's field.
(I Corinthians 3:9)
Our theme this month is WAITING. I don’t like to wait, and I don’t know anyone who does. Author Ben Patterson writes: “My image of hell is an eternity of standing in line, waiting in the lobby of some Kafkaesque bureaucracy.” Does his image resonate for you? It does for me.
Does the cry “How long, O Lord?” resonate with you? How long, O Lord, do I have to endure this? How long, O Lord, will things remain unchanged? How long, O Lord, will I have to wait?
A prolonged illness. A broken relationship. A loved one in pain. Justice denied. Unresolved questions. Deep doubts. Lingering fears. Political discord. Wars. The list is long.
In our technologically driven culture, we are accustomed NOT to wait. One click and we are immediately taken to a new image on our screens. We are increasingly conditioned to immediacy. We like and want things to occur instantaneously.
But life does not unfold instantaneously. In prior generations (and in agrarian cultures still today), awareness of the evolving nature of life, from planting seeds to germination to growth, maturity, blossoming and bearing fruit, guided one’s life. As author Eugene Peterson artfully puts it:
The person. . . who looks for quick results in the seed planting of well-doing will be disappointed. If I want potatoes for dinner tomorrow, it will do me little good to go out and plant potatoes in my garden tonight. There are long stretches of darkness and invisibility and silence that separate planting and reaping. During the stretches of waiting there is cultivating and weeding and nurturing and planting still other seeds.
“Long stretches of darkness and invisibility and silence” captures well the feeling of prolonged waiting. The Bible is full of stories of individuals who had to wait. Joseph waited 13 years. Abraham waited 25 years. Moses waited 40 years. Jesus waited 30 years. If God is making you wait, you’re in good company.
In this issue, our Profile spotlights Anthony Ray Hinton who spent three decades in prison on death row for a crime he did not commit. He rightfully could have become bitter but instead became a beacon of hope. We highlight an article on the lessons learned from Simeon and Anna and their experience of waiting. We feature the documentary film The Waiting Room which powerfully illuminates the experience of those injured or ill waiting for treatment in the ER.
With so much conflict in our world today, so much that is not peaceful and right, we join with the prophet Isaiah and his people in longing for the fullness of peace and righteousness. May this issue encourage you in your waiting, as you endure long stretches of darkness and invisibility and silence. Amidst our collective waiting, may we work to embody God’s peace and justice in this day, knowing that the fullness of peace lies in the age to come, when God will wipe away every tear and make all things new (Rev 21:4-5). (DG)
***
Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
(Psalm 25:4-5 ESV)
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
(Psalm 103:6 ESV)
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:31 ESV)
And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
(Romans 8:23 ESV)
SEEDS
A handful of quotes to contemplate and cultivate into your life
This waiting on God is the very real work of the people of God. (Ann Voskamp)
“Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come. (J.I. Packer)
Prayer trains the soul to singleness of focus: for God alone my soul waits. Another will is greater, wiser and more intelligent than my own. So I wait. Waiting means that there is another whom I trust and from whom I receive. My will, important and essential as it is, finds a will that is more important, more essential... In prayer we are aware that God is in action and that when the circumstances are ready, when others are in the right place and when my heart is prepared, I will be called into action. Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts. Waiting is our participation in the process that results in the "time fulfilled". (Eugene Peterson)
Sometimes when we’re waiting for God to speak, He’s waiting for us to listen.
(Martha Bolton)
Waiting is not the same as inactivity. Waiting is a commitment to continue in obedience until God speaks. (Priscilla Shirer)
You can save a lot of time waiting on God. (Adrian Rogers)
The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass. (Phillip Yancey)
Second only to suffering, waiting may be the greatest teacher and trainer in godliness, maturity, and genuine spirituality most of us ever encounter. (Richard Hendrix)
I had tended to view waiting as mere passivity. When I looked it up in my dictionary however, I found that the words passive and passion come from the same Latin root, pati, which means "to endure." Waiting is thus both passive and passionate. It's a vibrant, contemplative work. It means descending into self, into God, into the deeper labyrinths of prayer. It involves listening to disinherited voices within, facing the wounded holes in the soul, the denied and undiscovered, the places one lives falsely. It means struggling with the vision of who we really are in God and molding the courage to live that vision. (Sue Monk Kidd)
ART
Artist of the month
Brandon Heath:
Wait and See
Brandon Heath is a Grammy nominated, Dove Award winner, and Platinum selling singer and songwriter. A Nashville native, his first major album debut in 2006. Heath is recognized as a top lyricist in his field earning numerous songwriting accolades, including being named BMI’s Songwriter of the Year. His most recent album, The Ache, was released this past September. The album’s songs hold the tension of loss and longing, giving voice to the intrinsic ache experienced this side of heaven.
In this issue we spotlight Heath’s song Wait and See. The song’s chorus connects the concepts of waiting and hoping:
There is hope for me yet
Because God won't forget
All the plans He's made for me
I'll have to wait and see
He's not finished with me yet
He's not finished with me yet
Watch Heath’s Music Video: View Now
POETRY
Wait and See
(Simeon and Anna)
by Richard Bauckham
In the drab waiting-room
the failed travelers, resigned, sleep
on the hard benches, inured
to postponement and foul coffee.
Hope has given up on them.
There are also the impatient,
pacing platforms, and the driven,
purple with frustration, abusing
their mobiles, for the hardest part
of waiting is the not doing.
Truly to wait is pure dependence.
But waiting too long the heart
grows sclerotic. Will it still
be fit to leap when the time comes?
Prayer is waiting with desire.
Two aged lives incarnate
century on century
of waiting for God, their waiting-room
his temple, waiting on his presence,
marking time by practicing
the cycle of the sacrifices,
ferial and festival,
circling onward, spiraling
towards a centre out ahead,
seasons of revolving hope.
Holding out for God who cannot
be given up for dead, holding
him to his promises – not now,
not just yet, but soon, surely,
eyes will see what hearts await.
PROFILE
Anthony Ray Hinton
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty-nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.
But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on death row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence, full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but to find a way to live on death row. For the next twenty-seven years he was a beacon, transforming his own spirit and those of his fellow inmates--fifty-four of them were executed mere feet from his cell. He founded a prison book club, which helped his members to talk about their own lives, regrets, and ideas. With the help of Bryan Stevenson, civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Hinton won his release in 2015.
Hinton tells his agonizing and astounding story of waiting for justice and freedom in his memoir The Sun Does Shine. In the book he writes of the redemptive nature of waiting:
I forgive because I have a God who forgives.
It’s hard not to wrap your life in a story – a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A story that has logic and purpose and a bigger reason for why things turned out the way they did. I look for purpose in losing thirty years of my life. I try to make meaning out of something so wrong and so senseless. We all do. We have to find ways to recover after bad things happen. We have to make every ending a happy ending.
Every single one of us wants to matter. We want our lives and our stories and the choices we made or didn’t make matter. Death row taught me that it all matters. How we live matters.
Do we choose to love or do we choose to hate? Do we help or do we harm? Because there’s no way to know the exact second your life changes forever. You can only begin to know that moment by looking in the rearview mirror. And trust me when I tell you that you never, ever see it coming.
Learn more about Hinton’s extraordinary life story at the following links:
Equal Justice Initiative: View Now
Oprah.com: View Now
FILM
Each month we recommend films focused on our theme
Feature Film
Cast Away
(2000)
Obsessively punctual FedEx executive Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is en route to an assignment in Malaysia when his plane crashes over the Pacific Ocean during a storm. The sole survivor of the flight, Chuck washes ashore on a deserted island. When his efforts to sail away and contact help fail, Chuck learns how to survive on the island, where he remains for years, accompanied by only his handmade volleyball friend, Wilson. Will Chuck ever return to civilization and reunite with his loved ones?
The film is directed by Robert Zemeckis. It was nominated for two Academy Awards including Best Actor for Tom Hanks. Available on various streaming services.
View Trailer: View Now
Documentary Film
The Waiting Room
(2012)
24 hours. 241 patients. One stretched ER.
Highland Hospital, a vital part of the city of Oakland, California and the surrounding county, is stretched to the breaking point. It is the primary care facility for 250,000 patients of nearly every nationality, race, and religion, with 250 patients crowding its emergency room every day. The Waiting Room is an immersive documentary film that weaves together several stories which unfold in surprising ways in the ER waiting room. It is an intimate rendering of the story of our health care system at a moment of great change told through the eyes of people stuck – sometimes for up to 14 hours – in the waiting room. The film tells the story of a remarkably diverse population, as well as the hospital staff charged with caring for them, battling their way through the seismic shifts in the nation’s health care system, while weathering the storm of a national recession. It is a film about one hospital, its multifaceted community, and how our common vulnerability to illness binds us together as humans. Directed by Peter Nicks.
Short Film
The Wait
(4 minutes)
When the short film The Wait, by director Jason McColgan, was released in 2018, it won two film awards. In the film, which takes place in the United Kingdom, a woman is seen sitting on a bench at a bus stop. When the film opens, she's speaking on her phone making an appointment with a doctor's office. An older man is seen sitting next to her. As the camera pans out, we see that she is visibly pregnant and rubbing her stomach. She is clearly stressed. When the man begins to make conversation with her, it's clear her feathers are ruffled a bit. The questions range from typical, "When are you due?" to invasive, "Do you have any family?" and with each question her stress level seems to rise. Many women have dealt with their fair share of overly invasive (however well-meaning) strangers during pregnancy, so it's not surprising that she's a little distressed by his constant question asking. But as the bus arrives a revelation is disclosed.
Ted Talk
Inside the Mind of a Procrastinator
(14 minutes)
Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn't make sense, but he's never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window -- and encourages us to think harder about what we're really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.
ESSAY
Waiting for Jesus:
Lessons from Simeon and Anna
By Jeff Peabody
Advent’s elderly superstars waited decades for consolation. In this 2021 article from Christianity Today, they teach us much about waiting and welcoming.
Given the challenging times we live in, we can look to the Bible for comfort, perspective, and promise in the wake of loss or disappointment. In the birth narratives about Jesus, we are introduced to Simeon and Anna, who were “waiting for consolation” (Luke 2:25). They have much to say to our context today.
Author and pastor Peabody writes: “Two things stand out about these characters. First, they were both stellar people. Scripture describes Simeon as being righteous and devout (Luke 2:25). Luke assigns Anna a place among the prophets . . . A second, more mundane, observation is that they were both very old. Simeon knew he was near the end of his time on earth. Anna was 84, well beyond the era’s average life expectancy . . . . Luke introduces Simeon with a word that is normally translated as “waiting” (prosdechomenos). But, it could also be rendered as “ready to receive to oneself.” The term expresses an eagerness to welcome. That emphasis transforms the concept of waiting from excruciating endurance to active anticipation. Simeon counted the days until God revealed what he had promised to him personally.
Learn more about transforming waiting into active anticipation by reading the entire article.
BOOKS
Each month we recommend a book (or two) focused on our theme
NON-FICTION
Waiting:
Finding Hope When God Seems Silent
by Ben Patterson
Waiting . . . In a dead-end career for a breakthrough . . . In an unhappy marriage for relief or escape . . . In a chronic illness for a ray of hope . . . In solitude for the loneliness to subside . . . In turmoil for peace to come . . . Sometimes we find our lives placed on hold. Deep questions begin to surface. How long must I wait? Is there any meaning to all this waiting? Can I trust God? We can't help but wonder what is happening--and why? In Waiting, Ben Patterson uncovers two cardinal virtues required for successful waiting--humility and hope. You will learn how humility teaches us we exist for God's sake, not for our own; and you will learn how hope assures us that there is something worth waiting for.
FICTION
Home
By Marilynne Robinson
Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (Entertainment Weekly), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as Gilead.
A luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors.
The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. Artful and devious in his youth, now an alcoholic carrying two decades worth of secrets, he is perpetually at odds with his traditionalist father, though he remains his most beloved child. As Jack tries to make peace with his father, he begins to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, herself returning home with a broken heart and turbulent past.
Home is a luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors.
CHILDRENS
Waiting is Not Easy
by Mo Willems
Mo Willems, award-winning, New York Times best-selling creator of The Pigeon, Knuffle Bunny, and Unlimited Squirrels, presents best friends Elephant Gerald and Piggie.
Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to. Gerald and Piggie are best friends.
In Waiting Is Not Easy!, Piggie has a surprise for Gerald, but he is going to have to wait for it. And wait. And wait some more...
DIG DEEPER
Practical suggestions to help you go deeper into our theme
1. QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
Devote some time and thought to these reflective questions on our theme:
a. What comes to mind when you hear the word “waiting?”
b. What do you find difficult about waiting?
c. What does waiting teach us?
d. What’s the most meaningful thing you’ve waited for?
e. What are you waiting for now?
f. What does God promise to do for you if you wait upon Him?
2. WAITING AS A WAY OF LIFE
In this 1984 article by acclaimed journalist Lance Morrow published in Time magazine, he writes that “Waiting is a kind of suspended animation.” Morrow goes on to observe: “Waiting can seem an interval of nonbeing, the black space between events and the outcomes of desires. It makes time maddeningly elastic: it has a way of seeming to compact eternity into a few hours. Yet its brackets ultimately expand to the largest dimensions."
3. ART ABOUT WAITING – AND WHAT IT TAKES TO ENDURE
In this 2020 article from the New York Times Style Magazine, author Andrew Russeth writes: “In a time of crisis with no end in sight, durational performance, or endurance art, surfaces in our consciousness. Is this the art of our age?”
4. WHY YOU SHOULD READ WAITING FOR GODOT
It was Samuel Beckett who, in the wake of World War II, wrote the essential text about the despair of waiting — the 1952 play Waiting for Godot, in which two men sit among a desolate landscape, expecting someone who never arrives. In this 5-minute video from Ted Talks, educator and filmmaker Iseult Gillespie shares her perspective on why you should read the play Waiting for Godot.
5. PRAYER
Ever-Present God,
In the quiet of this moment,
I come before You to declare my intention to wait upon You.
In a world that rushes and races,
You call me to a posture of patience and trust.
My soul yearns for immediate answers and quick resolutions,
yet I know Your ways are higher than mine,
Your timing more perfect than any I could devise.
Teach me, Lord, to embrace the waiting as a sacred space
where my faith can grow and my spirit can find rest in You.
Help me to understand that in the waiting,
You are working,
weaving together a tapestry of grace
that will reveal Your glory and goodness in my life.
Amen
ROOTED
But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.
(Jeremiah 17:7-8 NIV)
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FIELD NOTES
Images used in order of appearance:
1. FIELD: Avshalom Sassoni, Flash90, The Jerusalem Post, Travellers at the departure halls of Ben Gurion International Airport ahead of the Jewish holiday of Passover, April 14, 2022
2. SEEDS: Henry Bacon, Dog in Mourning, 1870, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
3. ART: Edward Hopper, Intermission, 1963, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
4. POETRY: Andrew Wyeth, Chester County, 1962
6. FILM: Jasmijn Helweg, Teapot Reflection, 2021, Saatchi Art
7. ESSAY: Annelies Clarke, The Busstopqueue, 2001
https://www.anneliesclarke.com/anneliesclarkestories
8. BOOKS: Norman Rockwell, The Dugout (Chicago Cubs in Dugout), The Saturday Evening Post, September 4, 1948
9. DIG DEEPER: Kurt Ard, Cowboy Asleep in Beauty Salon, The Saturday Evening Post, May 6, 1961
10. ROOTED: Vincent van Gogh, Field with Plowing Farmers, 1889
TEAM CULTIVARE: Duane Grobman (Editor), Billy Brummel, Greg Ehlert, Bonnie Fearer, Ben Hunter, Eugene Kim, Olivia Mather, Andrew Massey, Rita McIntosh, Heather Shackelford, Jason Pearson (Design: Pearpod.com)
WE'RE LISTENING:
We welcome hearing your thoughts on this issue
and suggestions for future issues.
Email us at: info@tendwell.org