Patience

Art and I took turns this winter killing caring for Christine’s plants while she and her husband, Mick, were sailing in the Bahamas. They were supposed to have returned early March, but Christine texted that their departure was yet again held up at a US port by frustrating weather patterns. She mentioned how cold it was on their boat with no heat. Art pointed out that CIA dark sites used confinement to small spaces in relentless cold as a way to soften up their prisoners. Christine acknowledged she’d been feeling a bit like a prisoner being softened slowly but then said she’d been learning to be present and to appreciate where she was.

“Doesn’t patience only grow when tested?” she added.

I loved the insight and immediately thought of the spiritual qualities we’d been practicing in Vinyasa in March. Each class had a different focus: gratitude, acceptance, inner strength, hope, trust, joy, and the last class, sparked by Christine’s message: patience.

Since then my 92-year-old father broke his hip while putting away cards at his retirement condo’s weekly Bingo game. He had surgery the same night and, as I write this, is in rehab learning to walk independently. He’s been making progress, but it’s been slow and nonlinear. We’ve put his condo on the market, and he’s moving to South Carolina to be closer to my sister.

Going from living independently to suddenly having to rely on others to use the toilet would test anyone’s patience. And although his spirits have been remarkably high, he’s said a couple of times that he wished he would pass so it would all be over. But he hasn’t given up. He’s doing PT, and although it can hurt like hell, he’s sticking with it and staying hopeful. My niece tells him he’s a beast.

"Hope is patience with the lamp lit," wrote Tertullian, an ancient theologian I quoted in my April blog on Hope. I hadn’t thought about the connection between hope and patience until I’d read that quote. I also hadn’t considered that patience only grows when tested until Christine’s text.

But I do know that patience is a spiritual quality worth cultivating. The everyday things we practice: acquiring physical skills, navigating relationships, dealing with loss, advancing professionally, intellectually, artistically… all require patience in order to grow.

Art and I did our best to nurture Christine’s plants while she was gone. Christine and Mick did their best to stay present and appreciative while stuck at port. My dad is doing his best to be able to live independently again. You, like I, might be doing your best to stay hopeful as political boundaries and human decency continue to be tested.

All of the above require patience and hope to differing degrees; all require making peace with the pace of nature in order to experience growth and light.

Just as Christine’s plants might once again, now that she and Mick have finally returned.