To Nurture the Growth of Something Growing Within
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
July 17, 2022
Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. The scripture reading chosen for today is from Romans 8:22-28, the Message Version.
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
If there is one thing I have noticed lately, which has seemingly become worse in our world, it is the lack of patience. Most of the world seems simply reactionary these days. I know I have been impatient on many occasions, especially as things in our world seem to spin out of control, but I am starting to recognize my condition needing more patient waiting.
I think if the pandemic has taught us anything, it IS having to patiently wait on the outcome. Many struggled and continue to struggle with patience coming out of the pandemic. To think we waited over a year for a vaccine seems almost crazy in our instant society, yet, I think there is much more we can learn about patience that may even be supported and encouraged by our Quaker Faith.
Just before the pandemic, Dr. Judith Orloff wrote an article entitled “The Power of Patience.” To me, it has been wisdom for our frustrated and impatient ways. I continue to come back to it both as a reminder and as a vision for hope. Here is a snip-it of what she had to say,
We need a new bumper sticker: FRUSTRATION HAPPENS. Every morning, noon, and night there are plenty of good reasons to be impatient. Another long line. Telemarketers. A goal isn’t materializing “fast enough.” People don’t do what they’re supposed to. Rejection. Disappointment. How to deal with it all? You can drive yourself crazy, behave irritably, feel victimized, or try to force an outcome--all self-defeating reactions that alienate others and bring out the worst in them, or, you can learn to transform frustration with patience.
Patience doesn’t mean passivity or resignation, but power. It’s an emotionally freeing practice of waiting, watching, and knowing when to act.
I want to give patience a twenty-first-century makeover, so you’ll appreciate its worth. Patience has gotten a bad rap for the wrong reasons.
Too many people, when you say, “Have patience,” it feels unreasonable and inhibiting, an unfair stalling of aspirations, some Victorian hang-up or hangover. Is this what you’re thinking?
Well, reconsider. I’m presenting patience as a form of compassion, a re-attuning to intuition, a way to emotionally redeem your center in a world filled with frustration.
I like what she is getting at, that when we look at patience as a difficult thing, or something to get over, patience becomes problematic instead of helpful.
Wouldn’t it be life-altering to look at patience as a form of compassion, a re-attuning to intuition, a way to emotionally redeem one’s center? I sense it would be greatly beneficial, and I could see how it immediately would make a difference in our personal and corporate lives.
I don’t know about you, but what I believe Dr. Orloff is talking about seems very Quakerly in orientation and process.
Early Quakers were known to discover what they called a “third way” to respond to “the presence of darkness” within their own hearts and in the surrounding society. They wanted to find ways to move toward the Light. They also did not want to hide from the truth, nor wallow in their own issues.
Early Quakers clearly knew that playing the “blame game” was not going to help move them toward the light, so instead, they embraced “patient waiting,” to help them be more compassionate to their neighbors, to help re-focus themselves on seeking after truth, and to ultimately center themselves before making decisions.
If you notice, Dr. Orloff’s makeover is simply taking us back to our Quaker roots.
In many religions, as well as Quakerism, darkness and light are the metaphors used to help one see the stark contrast of the good and bad parts of life and even the Divine.
It still is being engrained in our culture, the number one series on Netflix, Stanger Things is all about two worlds of darkness and light. And just as in the series, our “darkness" comes both from within and from without.
When working to acknowledge the “darkness” within and around us, the frustration we sense, and the externals pressures of this world, waiting in patience is what Dr. Orloff says, “draws us inward to a greater wisdom….” It connects us to, what we Quakers call, our inner light and to how we are to respond to the world around us.
Thus, patience leads us to being enlightened, as well as learning how to take appropriate action.
Quaker Doug Gwyn says “Patience is an active condition of the Spirit... It can survive the long haul of transformation. But it is not fed on the bitter fruit of resentment.”
Patience is the tool, or maybe the conduit to help our transformation and action to take shape.
Dr. Orloff adds, “…patience doesn’t make you a doormat or unable to set boundaries with people…Rather, it lets you intuit the situations to get a larger more loving view to determine right action.”
Thus, patience is what helps us love and act in ways that are beneficial to our community.
For the last couple months, I have been challenging myself to take moments of pause, to intentionally wait to respond to emails, texts, and phone messages, and instead of quickly responding allowing myself to think through things before answering. I am sure it has bothered other people as much as it has bothered me on occasion.
I will be honest, this is not easy for me, personally – especially since I like to process out loud and dialogue about things in the moment.
It continues to be a discipline for me to seek patience, first. I know this is true for others as well. Often as I am meeting with members or attenders, we land on discussing impatient behaviors and the negative impacts or “darkness” impatience is creating in their lives.
Often it takes some queries to help explore in more depth our struggle. Maybe you too can take a moment this morning and consider these queries – ask youself:
● In what sort of situations do I find myself most impatient?
● Why am I impatient, and how do I deal with my impatience?
● What groups, people, organizations, etc. cause me to be impatient?
I believe these queries begin our journey into what those early Quakers considered the “darkness” within and around us. When we start to address this “darkness,” this frustration that seems to grip us, the external pressures that we, our work, our families, our politics, our media, our surrounding world put on us, we begin to notice the impatience that is or has been growing within and around us.
When we begin to practice patient waiting…
● We become aware of the lack of compassion we have shown to our neighbors and their situations (as well as the lack of compassion for ourselves).
● We notice our “short fuses” and where we have become irritated by little things.
● We notice where we are no longer as intuitive and willing to try and reason or understand or work to see what is actually going on, or take time to understand the back story.
● Or where we are quick to make assumptions and think our views are the right and only ways.
● And then as part of our struggle and impatience, we begin to notice where we lose control of our emotions, where we go inward in negative ways, and where we even become inwardly depressed emotionally or outwardly reactive emotionally.
Folks, there are many ways we express our struggle since we are all so unique in our makeup.
Henri Nouwen seems to sum it up well, when asked to define a patient person he explained:
"A waiting person is a patient person. The word 'patience' implies the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Impatient people expect the real thing to happen somewhere else, and therefore they want to get away from the present situation and go elsewhere. For them the moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the growth of something growing within."
I love how Eugene Peterson translated the scripture text for this morning. He articulates well Nouwen’s “nurturing the growth of something growing within.” It reads,
“That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”
May that be true for us as we practice patient waiting this morning and this week.
Now, as we enter a time of patient waiting worship, I want us to take some time to center down and return to those queries I shared. Allow me to repeat them for us, now:
● In what sort of situations do I find myself most impatient?
● Why am I impatient, and how do I deal with my impatience?
● What groups, people, organizations, etc. cause me to be impatient?