The Happiness of Patience
Some close friends and I were talking today about our personal hopes and plans for the new year that’s about to dawn. None of us intended to make any formal resolutions. For the most part, each of us is happy with the paths we are on. We’re already committed to growing in our awareness, deepening our spiritual consciousness, expanding our skills, developing our talents, moving toward increasingly vibrant health and well-being.
But then one friend confessed that she was feeling stuck and seemed to be going around in dull circles in her life. Nothing seemed to have any special appeal for her right now. Nothing was grabbing her interest or attention. Her life was all questions and no answers.
“Ah!” Charles said, “You’re resting. That’s what you’re wanting right now. Enjoy it!”
That’s great advice. When you find yourself at a standstill, embrace it. Meet it with open arms, allowing it to be exactly what it is—a time of inner renewal. When you can learn to enjoy life’s pauses, you’re all the more ready when the time for new creations appears.
Being at a standstill is like being in the midst of a psychic winter. It feels as if everything has stopped growing. The nights are long, and the days lack color. It’s a time when everything seems turned inward. You hunger for light and yearn for the days when you can run bare-legged beneath a warm and friendly sun.
And yet, if you listen with your inner senses, you can tell that miracles are happening beneath the snow-draped fields. The bulbs and seeds are alive with magic and silently preparing to birth wonders. Within the trees, looking so barren and lifeless now, cells are performing secret alchemies that will burst into blossom and leaves.
Yet the soil knows no restlessness, and the trees are masters of waiting. They are masters of patience, and in their wisdom they say. “Enjoy the beauty of the moment, of this day.”
They know the secret expressed by the 19th Century poet Bulwer-Lytton: “Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active. It is concentrated strength.” It’s the strength of regeneration, of inner construction, of preparation for the next outward swing of the creative force.
Patience waits with power and dignity, with poise and self-possession. It understands the down strokes of life’s rhythms, its in-breaths. Patience sinks into them with persevering calm and steadiness, humming a contented little song, for it knows the purpose of its waiting. It goes about its tasks with an even temper, resting on the outer quiet of the phase. It busies itself with observations as it waits, and indulges in diversions and play. It likes the holiness of the moment’s hidden magic and feels the intensifying joy of hope and anticipation, asking, “What will this bring? What will this bring?” as the process flows toward birth and completion.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves,” said Rainer Maria Rilke. “Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”
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