Authentic Patience
The Third Sunday of Advent
Reflection By Amy Sander Montanez
Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.
- Rumi
I have a confession to make. I never pray for patience, and I don’t encourage others to pray for patience either. On a light-hearted level, I quip that if you pray for patience, God is sure to provide a reason for you to have to learn patience. After all, the root word patiore means “to suffer.” No thank you to that idea. I find it difficult to pray for patience because I believe there is a complex relationship between patience and other virtues, like authenticity, truthfulness, integrity, perseverance, and my least favorite, surrender.
I kind of love it that in today’s gospel passage, John the Baptizer calls the crowd a “brood of vipers.” I cheer him on when he shouts what I think in my head. I have taught myself not to say things like this out loud, But I think things like that about people sometimes, especially when they disappoint me, because being disappointed by another is the hardest emotion for me to process. Or maybe disappointing myself is the hardest? I just know that I have such high expectations. And I ask this question often: Is that really the best you or I can do? “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Luke 3:9). Brood of vipers we all are.
The last two years have tested my patience with others, and I imagine they have tested yours too. How do we have patience with others when their actions may be threatening to us? What does patience look like in our faith communities when others may want very different things than we do? I don’t think my heart is much more patient with others at the end of these two years, but I do think I have become more gracious. And kinder. Thanks be to God.
I have lived enough years and been a therapist and spiritual director long enough to answer my own question. And honestly, I really don’t like the answer. Yes, people—including me—are doing the best they can. Given the raw material they are working with, the history, the childhood, the traumas, and the stories we know nothing about, yes, people are doing the best they can. Now I have to find a way to move forward in relationship with authenticity, truthfulness, integrity, and surrender. Oh, and gentleness, like Paul encourages today in his letter to the Philippians: “Let your gentleness be known to everyone.”
I still don’t pray for patience, but I pray for understanding, for gentleness, for the eyes of Christ to help me see others more clearly, and for the peace of God, which surely surpasses my own understanding, to guard my heart—and my lips—until my thoughts and actions look something like patience.
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