Waiting for God

Merton's reflection on waiting frustrates me.  Of course, we wait in silence and in noise and in peace and in calamity.  Merton turns from the notion of waiting to the idea of being a child of God and what that signifies; growth in wisdom.  But, he seems to suggest that the Father "protects and defends" out of a loyalty to our obedience.  This kind of waiting seems to contradict the liturgical prayer in which we "wait in joyful hope" for a God that is constantly searching for and finding us.  Or perhaps I know little of obedience of the sort to which Merton is aspiring. 
I have always felt a childish joy in the space of a church.  Not as a child in the presence of loving parents, but more like a child in the home of a loving aunt or uncle.  I could never feel taken for granted in such a place but revered as much as any of the statues of the virgin or Joseph or anyone else whose image was portrayed there, even the body of Christ. 
If I am to be obedient, I believe it is to the spirit that animates me, that joins me to all living things, that sweeps me up into the action of every atom of existence.  A small part, but essential, at some infinitesimally small level.
I talked with the chair of my department today who advised me on the procedure to apply for continuing contract.  He asked me how things were going.  I told him that I was afraid that my perspective on the semester was being colored by the grief I've been going through.  I told him how discouraged I had been by the lack of reading skills the majority of my students exhibit, even though they are in their second, even third years of college.  That they didn't seem to be able to go beyond a surface level of understanding of simple or sometimes complex readings, and that when I suggested that they needed to work harder at reading they seem genuinely offended.  He reassured me that my remarks had been echoed by my colleagues in and outside of our department.  These students are different than the students I met a little over four years ago.  They are less capable of confronting the complexity of ideas with a modicum of discernment, but worse they don't seem to appreciate that it is exactly that task that they must meet in order to succeed at a college level.  Unfortunately, with the pressure on my colleagues and I to keep our jobs, I think that our curriculums will have to be reduced in rigor in order to retain the students.  These are students who have never failed because no one will fail them, and as a result their education is not their problem.  Mamet's play, Oleanna describes the kind of mind that seems to develop under such perverse conditions.  I had considered doing that play for my literature students because I could not stand the idea of another forced march through a dialogue like Prometheus Bound, but in reading Oleanna, I was afraid that the only understanding they might get from such a play is how abused they have been by me!
So, we're going to read Angels in America! 
Then we will all wait for God together.