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Friends United Meeting |
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April 2001
Patience: The Still Point of Freedom
By Keith R. Maddock
As a young child I was energetic and hungry for adventure. I longed to run outdoors, and pined away at the window during bad weather. I asked innumerable questions about the world, longing to understand and to savor its delights. I longed to play in the freedom that nurtures faith, and grieved when I lay in bed with a cold or fever. And I resented the slowness of others who were unable of keep up. Throughout those years, adults were constantly trying to teach me the "virtue of patience." And, to some extent, I have come to appreciate their concern. Slowing down happens naturally, as a person grows older. But that is less of a virtue than an imposition of time. The better part of patience has more to do with recovering the treasure of my youth--no longer being impatient to realize something beyond my present capacity, yet still eagerly anticipating the sweet moment-to-moment opportunities of life.
Patience as a learned virtue is related to self-discipline, submission, compassion, openness to the as yet unlearned lessons that life may have to teach us, and faith in the transcendent beauty of existence. It is seldom willed, and must be learned over and over again as we pause to take note of the changing people, places and situations that touch upon our existence from day to day. Like so many traditional virtues, it is at bottom a gift, more like the spontaneous virtue of childhood than the accumulated reserve and intelligence of age.
Patience in Suffering: Submission
Patience in suffering often gives the virtuous properties a bad reputation
when religious and political leaders enjoin people to submit to authority
or to fate. "Grin and bear it," is a popular admonition--as
if our strength and intelligence as adults rested on our ability to deny
suffering and put on a brave front to the world. The story of Job is often
cited as an example of such endurance, and a test of true faith.
Yet Job was hardly silent in his despair. He often cries out against God, demanding answers and protesting against the apparent injustice of his trials. His friends and neighbors, all too willing to suggest ways out of his confusion and debilitating anger, fail to help. In identifying with or denying his pain, they overlook the essential truth that suffering is essential to the refinement of joy.
The psychologists, Evelyn and James Whitehead, have pointed out the Chinese character for patience is based on an ideogram depicting a knife poised over a heart. It seems to describe a state of willingness to hold still in painful settings until we know what we are feeling. As painful feelings of anger, fear or loneliness threaten our calm and control, we are tempted to flee the emotion. "But," they write, "patience is the ability to hold still under threat, until we can discern what is at stake." Such patience does not require either passivity or docility, but a keen attentiveness to what is really happening before it escalates into a more debilitating melancholy or depression.
In a culture based on ambition, it is difficult to hold still, and any demand to do so seems to put a damper on spontaneity and freedom. In the face of negative emotions, however, courage is needed to hold still long enough to recognize what we are feeling. Such courage is also needed to experience and weave together the varied elements of our life stories to discover meaning and purpose in them.
Patience with Others: Empathy and Compassion
If patience in suffering is difficult to attain, being patient with other
people who cross our path or impede our progress may be even more so.
As an incentive to violence, the fruit of impatience is often demonstrated
in criminal conduct, intolerance, political oppression and armed conflict.
In a world of anxiety and mistrust, the words of the apostle to the early
Christians addressed a critical need for survival as well as faithful
observance of their religion. Addressing the church of the Colossians,
Paul wrote, "As God's chosen was holy and beloved, clothe yourselves
with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with
one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each
other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive."
(Colossians 3:12-13)
Having overcome the temptation of hostility, there are other impatient responses that we need to be aware of. These include silent endurance of others' behavior, and a tendency to identify so closely with their emotions we are unable to distinguish them from our own. Both take away the integrity of what a person is feeling. To take a firm but patient stand against what we perceive to be aggressive or unjust behavior involves recognition that what the other person does matters and has an effect upon us. Even bullies deserve to be acknowledged. Otherwise, they may continue with their bullying, bitter that no one cares one way or another.
Empathy, or exchanging places with another, often comes about when our attitudes are unexpectedly mirrored back to us. Elderly people who have lost control of their senses or their physical abilities, for example, often provoke the impatience of their families. I once heard a story about a young couple who lived in a comfortable house with their son. When the child was old enough to walk, his grandfather came to live with them. The elderly man was quite infirm at this time, and his hands trembled. When he sat down to eat, he would drop food on the floor and spill drinks. The family was becoming distraught, and often scolded the old man like a child for his awkwardness. After he dropped a glass bowl he was trying to eat from, they bought him a wooden bowl.
Then, one day the parents returned home to discover their son on the floor carving a block of wood. When asked what he was making, the child answered, "It's a present for you so you will have something to eat from when you get old and have to live with me." The parents moved the grandfather back to table and patiently cleaned up after him without criticism or comment.
Patience with Self: Affirmation and Empowerment
Being patient with ourselves is often the hardest task of all. We may
be our own worst critics when it comes to reflecting on our lack of faith,
our physical limitations, and our inherited moral values. Worst of all,
as we grow older we become impatient with our own mortality. There is
so much to do and so little time to do it. Patience with ourselves means
growing inwardly, and learning compassion toward others, while we wait
for an end to suffering. This is the greatest gift of all. Although inward,
or spiritual growth, is often the focus of self-help therapies, nothing
can substitute for a lifetime of experience and cultivation. Like the
good soil that receives seed in the parable, "these are the ones
who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart,
and bear fruit with patient endurance." (Luke 8:15)
As T.S. Eliot wrote in his spiritual epic, Four Quartets, the end of all our exploring is to return to the place we began from--and to know the place for the first time. Becoming patient with ourselves involves an exploration of our potential, recognizing the whole palette of our experiences and emotions as the material of a life well lived, and facing the unknown future with a healthy sense of who we are. At that point religion may enter the picture as a meaningful reflection on the whole of our lives, and no longer as a set of judgments of our failures and imperfection.
Searching the horizon while seeking a new opening in my life, I find strength in the advice of George Fox, written in 1658: "Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord God, whereby thou wilt receive his strength and power from whence life comes, to allay all tempests, against blusterings and storms. That is it which moulds up into patience, into innocency, into soberness, into stillness, into quietness, up to God, with his power."
Keith R. Maddock, a member of Canadian Yearly Meeting, holds masters degrees in religious education and pastoral theology from the University of Toronto. Since 1997, when he spent a semester at the Earlham School of Religion as the Patrick Henry writing scholar, his writing has been published widely in international Friends journals. He presently serves as a Canadian delegate to FUM General Board.
Copyright (c) 2001 Friends United Meeting
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