When I think about patience I nearly always end up thinking of the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption (a classic in my view but I understand it to be the film version of Marmite: you love it or you hate it!) and the main character (another Andy!) chipping away each night – for nineteen years – at a tunnel to escape from the prison in which he had been wrongfully incarcerated.
Also on the subject of patience I’ve always had a soft spot for the first few lines of Psalm 40 – particularly since the rock group U2 used a version of them in one of their early songs (“40”) in the mid-eighties.
Psalm 40:1-3 (NRSV)
1 I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
The value of waiting patiently and the hope for rescue or reward, is surely highly relevant to our current national situation. You may have noticed that, without there being any great overall improvement, there has been a substantial ramping up in the amount of talk about easing our lockdown restrictions. Of course the vast majority of us would appreciate some lockdown easing, though we would also surely wish to be reassured that any such, when it comes, has been properly thought through and is unlikely to lead to a sudden surge in new cases.
Patience is definitely required. But patience is not something that we are each equally endowed with and furthermore the circumstances we each have to be patient with are highly varied. Since I am largely confident that waiting will ultimately yield a meaningful improvement, and that the circumstances of the wait itself will mainly be bearable for me, I recognise that I am in a place of privilege, one that may not be shared by all of you and definitely not by all in our society. The fact that waiting (patiently or otherwise), and abiding by the restrictions, may be all that one can do, doesn’t mean that it will be remotely easy for some of us.
And then, while we are wrestling with this, we have the complication of social and news media. Some of this may be problematic simply as it feels too much like ‘noise’ but, for those who are struggling with getting through each day there may also be too many pictures or stories of people who are – seemingly – managing to live a version of their best possible life, despite the lockdown, which can be very difficult to connect with! And things can be further complicated when the discourse takes on a moralising flavour: there are some very irksome ‘memes’[1] in circulation berating folk who aren’t using all this supposedly high quality extra time to start some new mega project or learn a new skill or something similar. When the reality is that we can only properly attend to such things when we feel comfortable that our other more basic needs are met, and are going to continue to be met.
I am, of course, delighted for all those folk who are able to use this extra time or take life at a more leisurely pace. But for others I would stress that at the moment – even as we find this whole crisis dragging on – you still don’t have to have it all together, you still don’t have to be achieving anything particular: it’s enough for you to get through this. Yes, as ever, it would be nice to appreciate each moment as they come. But if even the exhortation to live in the moment (which I have made from time to time!) feels like a demand then let us release ourselves from that too. However much you are struggling with lockdown if you are still here, in it, in that struggle, doing each day the little that you can, chipping away, then that is enough. You are enough.
Spirit of Life, may we both be open to your guidance as we try to navigate our current crisis and yet may we also have confidence in our own personal response, particularly when we feel unhelpful social pressure. May we be as patient as we are able, yet, if we truly need to speak out or take some action, let us be prepared to do so. Amen
[This formed Upper Chapel’s Wednesday lunchtime reflection on Weds 29th April 2020 and was originally distributed by email due to Chapel closure under Covid-19 restrictions.]
[1] For the uninitiated a typical Internet meme would involve one or more photos and some kind of witty phrase/catchphrase about some topic that is currently in public consciousness.
Rudder and Sails 