By Julie Hart
Galatians 5:19-25
It’s very humbling to be asked to speak on the fruit of the Spirit of patience. In fact, whether or not I am the right person to speak is up for grabs. But, all I can say is that in retrospect, over the course of my 71 years, I am certainly more patient today than I was in my 20s, 30s or 40’s when my motto was something like goals first, time management, efficiency, charge!
So that we’re on the same page, I want to start by defining patience. I see patience as an ability to endure difficulties without frustration, complaining or anger. It includes a calm non-judgmental perseverance in the face of life’s challenges or when things are not going as planned. Patience involves the capacity to bear pain and suffering with quiet, steady resolve. It includes self-control and an ability to let go of our frustration when confronted with all kinds of barriers. I think it’s also helpful to note what patience is not. Obviously, it’s not impatience but lack of self-control, acting out of frustration and anger, being erratic and complaining a lot.
When I think about patience, I think about my son Kellen with three little girls ages 6, 3 and. 8 months when getting them ready for bed, getting them into and out of the bathtub and dealing with meltdowns. So I asked him, what do you think is your key to patience with the kids? He thought for a bit and said he heard a podcast once talk about the importance of letting go of what should happen, what should be, how people should behave. He added, when I am able to let go of the shoulds, it gives me the patience to deal with most difficult situations. This is a great observation of a key to growing in patience from a disciplined perspective using one’s own will power but I want to talk about the spiritual perspective, as Apostle Paul puts it, “Walk by the spirit rather than your own religious rules or self-will” because I think that has been more of my pathway.
I also found it helpful to note the difference between the Gifts of the spirit like giving, preaching, teaching, healing and having wisdom to see the signs of the times or prophesying. These gifts are given uniquely to each of us and hopefully we recognize them and use them to further God’s Kingdom. Fruits of the spirit are different and as I understand are available to all of us to the degree that we nurture and make space for the Holy Spirit’s work in us. This difference reminded me of our 3 apple trees- one of them was a runt early on while the other 2 shot right up and have been quite productive offering us fresh apples, applesauce, apple butter and even apple cider. I was finally ready to give up on the runt and suggested to Phil that he cut it down and start over. Like the good steward he is, he said, give me one more year to see if I can help it flourish. The runt was getting plenty of sunlight and water, so he surrounded it with manure to give it a boost. Then he offered it a deer protective fence to keep the new growth from being eaten away. Finally, he trimmed back some of the long spindly branches that were too thin to hold fruit. I like thinking about my own pathway to patience in a similar way. First, I immersed myself in the spiritual fertilizer of the 12 Steps of Alanon starting with admitting I needed help and asking God to be in charge of my life. Second, I began an inventory of my strengths and shortcomings and made amends to those I had harmed along the way of practicing efficiency, goal setting, charge! This was kind of like cutting off my unproductive branches. And finally, I began a daily discipline of meditation or centering prayer to help me listen to God’s still small voice within. I see this as kind of like providing a protective deer fence to keep me from the distractions of the world. I want to share a bit more about how and why I believe these 3 pathways nurture and make space for the spirit and have been transformative for me.
The first thing that I believe has made a major difference in my pathway to patience, has been my 12 step work, my fertilizer. As an adult child of Alcoholics with some baggage to work through. I have been repeating the 12 steps regularly over the last 40 years, and especially the steps involving surrender to God’s will versus my own and turning my shortcomings over to God. With these steps, I was adopting an ongoing program of not just prayer, not just bible study, not just attending church but of universal spiritual steps to open my heart, my mind and my soul to the Holy Spirit-to Walk by the Spirit as Paul puts it, rather than my own will.
The second thing was a very conscious process of identifying my own shortcomings as key to self-knowledge and self-awareness. This was like pruning away my unproductive branches. As I did my first searching and fearless moral inventory, I reviewed my young marriage at age 20 and struggle over our differences in spending money that led to disagreements and anger. Soon after that my first job as a staff nurse on a surgical floor entering my first evaluation thinking I was doing a pretty good job and receiving an evaluation that was basically a C. Talk about a reality check about my own strengths and weaknesses! Then I think about parenting and in the early years arrogantly choosing to teach a course on parenting at the community college and then realizing as the children hit middle and high school and had various challenges with ADD, social anxiety, depression and rebellion that I needed a course in parenting and that this job was much bigger than me. Then I think about my job as the director of the Health Promotion Institute, supervising employees and in charge of external funding through competitive grants and the challenges of difficult employees. This helped me to realize that I was not as patient as I thought I was and challenged my arrogance. Being aware of and admitting our failures can open our hearts and move our rigid thinking toward understanding and patience. Facing my own failure helped open me to transformation of impatience with my kids, my husband, my coworkers. my students, even with the world. As I remembered my own selfish behaviors, poor judgement, and immaturity, I turned them over to God and made amends for them. Gradually, I grew in patience when I saw similar weaknesses others.
Richard Rohr observes that the word “change” normally refers to new beginnings. But the mystery of transformation more often happens not when something new begins, but when something old falls apart. The pain and chaos of something old falling apart invite the soul to listen at a deeper level.
The third thing that has been instrumental in growing in patience and kindness, as they seem to go hand in hand for me, is a discipline of daily meditation and centering prayer in a commitment to increase my conscious contact with God and make space for the Holy Spirits voice within. This is a real discipline for me as I spend about 30 minutes every morning before I get out of bed following my breathing and attempting to listen to the inner voice of God. It is a mindfulness meditation, and I believe it is during this quiet time that God can truly work at transforming me into the person God would like me to become. In fact, it’s what I believe God wants all of us to become: joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, self-controlled, and gentle- the fruits of walking with the spirit and as Paul puts it, not living by the desires of the flesh or our self-will. Father Richard Rohr observes that for him the most obvious change that results from the practice of contemplative prayer is that we will naturally become much more compassionate and patient toward just about everything.
The results of growing in patience are plentiful. I see patience as being key to many parts of one’s life from having patience and kindness with my ever-confident spouse, my struggling young adult students, my angry neighbor, my arrogant co-workers, my conservative legislators and even with my enemies. It gives me patience with my local legislators learning just how difficult it is to change public policy and how lengthy the process can be. It gives me more patience with changes I want to see in the church. It gives me more patience with people who are acting out of fear or anger or prejudice or to protect their job and family. It gave me the patience I needed to survive three years of researching and writing a dissertation. It gave me patience to persevere through 10 years of research and writing a book. It is giving me patience in watching my kids in their married lives make bad decisions. Indeed, growing in patience through all my mistakes, through improving my conscious contact with God and through self-reflection and making amends, has made everyday life less frustrating, more joyful and definitely more peaceful for me and I hope those I come in contact with.
But more than being less frustrated and more enjoyable to be with, Jesus asks us to be sensitive, in solidarity with others and nonviolent. Jesus celebrates those who long for justice, embody compassion, and are able to be honest about their weaknesses and strengths. Jesus created a new kind of hero, not warriors, not corporate executives or politicians, but brave and determined nonviolent activists and agents of change. We are to help build a peaceful society and be willing to suffer like Jesus did rather than cause suffering using violence. This is the purpose of making space for and fertilizing our relationship with the Spirit.
We are going to spend the next month or so exploring all the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And so I want to leave you with a question about any unproductive fruit trees in your own life because our runt of a tree is now producing good fruit and shows promise of new growth just like I do. What are you doing to fertilize your spiritual path, protect yourself from worldly distractions and to trim back your unproductive branches so that they too can make way for the many fruits of the spirit? My path may not be your path – there are many paths to the spirit- but I am convinced that nurturing and making space for the spirit is the path to be on.
