PEACE AND PATIENCE


In Mandarin, Patience means "to wait with certainty; to allow life to carry you."

The Ten Commandments are lessons in dealing "with our own stuff" and not putting it out into the world. I've been thinking about how in Hebrews Paul writes that Christ becomes "an author of life" and how this reflects the Buddhist and Taoist notions of "ministering." The Taoists and Buddhists maintain that how we walk and talk and think creates the world. The Judeo-Christian Commandments are our version of this. Along with the command not to commit blasphemy, harsh speech, we, too, are instructed to only put peace in the world. I struggle with this when I want an answer NOW for a question. Our tendency is to "talk" about it when we are angry, to put our emotions out there for all to see, and endure. This is counter to peace. Inaction and silence prompt us to work through our attitudes toward things that confound us, rather than to turn them into a circus of words. Thought, word, and deed is such a tall order. But I think that if it leads to peace as the teachings suggest, it's worth it. All of my control issues are the result of my impatience, my inablity to let things unfold. I am working on developing patience.

Comments

Mark Morelli said…
I used to think that talking out everything was the answer. It can, of course, be therapeutic, like writing is, in that expression helps to solidify thinking. But when it talking is just ranting, yelling, venting, when the words are meaningless bags of gas that create comfort only because they are released . . . I understand now how there are other, more serene ways to acquire peace. Thank you for your blog.
11:53 AM
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