inspired while running

Inspired by awesome Canadian music songwriters too! What do I pump on iTunes to get me motivated to work out? The CBC Radio 3 podcast with Grant Lawrence.

I hopped off the ellipitcal jsut shot of 30 minutes, so that I could jot this down:

We're all waiting
Waiting for something
What are you wiling to do while
You're waiting?

One day it may come
What will you see?
What will you have Done?
While you've waited
For something, for someone.

Is that something
A way of being?
Or does that something become
A way of knowing?

Yes, we're all waiting
waiting for something
What will you do
While you wait?

What I was thinking:
I'm waiting to get off this machine so I can write this down!
Really, I'm referencing all those times in life when we're striving for and reaching for something that we may, or may not, be able to bring any closer to us by our own power. This thing we wait for comes to us just as quickly as we get to it.

What do we really do with our time while we strive for that thing? Do we treat that object/person/goal as a salvation, and just passively let life go by, dwindling our efforts in our wait? Or do we do everything we can to prepare for the coming of that time, to realize that goal, to reach for that dream?

What if that thing we wait for never comes? Is our wait in vain? Not necessarily. I think it's what we did with our waiting time that most significantly effects the outcome. Like the poem says "Is that something, A way of being? Or does that something become, A way of knowing?". I have had this experience with several things I wait for. I wait to have a healthy body, I wait for the return of Christ, I wait to finish school, I wait to find out where I will attend graduate school, I wait to meet & find out who my kids are, I wait to grow old, I wait for the weekend, I wait for my turn in the bathroom, I wait in many, many lines. What do I do while I wait? What is this "waiting" stuff?

I do not wait passively. I try to exercise as often as I can. eat healthful foods, and learn from good books all the things I can do to have a healthy body. I may not ever get a fully "healthy" body. there are somethings that I do not know how to control, like if I get a brain tumor, have a stroke, or cancer. I can influence my contribution to those things, but if those things come to me I cannot always control. I research graduate schools, I prepare my applications for submission. I find out and complete the requirements that they expect their new students to have, in anticipation of acceptance.

This is kind of a measurement of life. It's not about waiting it's about doing, knowing, and having faith in the unknown.

Perhaps this poem needs a rewrite, or additions... it doesn't quite convey my feelings fully yet. This is why it's developed & unexposed.