Patience Is Practical
Patience is practical in that it is necessary, within chronological time, to overcome obstacles to seeking God and barriers which prevent openness to God’s grace. It is a factor that contributes to transformation. Patience is also a manifestation of an open and God-filled life. It is a characteristic of a manner of life which embodies God’s presence.
Patience was seen as an alternative to the mind’s and the ego’s need for “immediate action.” A perceived need for progress in sanctification or responding to a physical need or challenge could easily deflect the monk from the necessary balance between body and soul in ascetic life.
Abba Ammonas once went to cross the river and found the ferry untended and seated himself nearby it. Just then another boat arrived at that place and embarked the people waiting there in order to take them across. And they said to him, “You come too, Abba, and cross over with us.” But he said, “I will only board the public ferry.” He had a bundle of palm leaves and sat plaiting a rope and then undoing it until the ferry was made ready. And so he went across. Then the brothers bowed low before him and said, “Why did you do this?” And the elder said to them, “That I may not always be dwelling on my thought:’ And this is also an example that we may walk the path of God in tranquility.16
From the monk’s mind’s or ego’s point of view, life’s challenges, opportunities, and hardships often demand a rapid response or solution. This impatience can overlook a deep spiritual perspective on the situation. It can mask the “real situation” and lead to choosing inappropriate actions or resources to meet the need. It can lure the monk away from his or her cell and from communion with God.
An affliction befell some brothers in the place where they were living, and wishing to abandon it they went to find Abba Ammonas. And it happened that the elder was coming by boat down the river. And when he saw them walking along the bank of the river, he said to the boatman, “Put me ashore.” And calling to the brothers he said to them, “I am Ammonas, whom you wish to visit.” And having encouraged them, he made them return to the place from which they had come. For the matter was connected not with spiritual damage, but with human affliction. 17
Various calamities and hardships may lead a person to become discouraged, fearful, or hopeless. But unless such thoughts are allowed to harm a person’s soul, he or she can, with patient asceticism, gain the strength to live through such hardships. Patience helps a person avoid letting such physical hardships become harmful to the soul.
Twenty-first-century cultures have become increasingly impatient. Fast food, fast credit, ever faster traffic and quick and efficient solutions to conflict, including war, are hallmarks of our era. It is difficult to be a leader in today’s society. The pressures for results are intense. With communications and events taking place with greater speed, the public demands quicker responses and solutions. Leaders in all sectors of modern life have little time to ponder decisions. Patience is no longer a virtue in this age of “rapid response teams.” Politicians and leaders in business are often considered weak or “flip-floppers” if they take time to weigh options or balance their public responsibilities with scholarly, literary or even technical reflection. Leaders who have learned from experience and who change their minds, in time, are considered dishonest. This modern impatience places a higher value on the moment and short-term results than on longer-term vision and development.
There are dangers in such a fast-moving society. The soul of society as well as individual souls are at stake. What are we becoming and who are we becoming in our “results rule” frenzy? How is the speed of modern life affecting the sacredness and quality of human lives and the earth’s resources. Is it possible to change this momentum? What will happen if our impatience continues indefinitely?
Patience Supports Commitment to Personal Prayer
The work of ascetic life was not easy. Its pattern could never be taken for granted. There was no room for simply “going through the motions.” “It was said of Abba Agathon that for three years he lived with a stone in his mouth, until he had learnt to keep silence.”18 There were temptations to “give up” or leave and there was always the possibility of “greener pastures.”
The fathers used to say, “If a temptation comes to you in the place where you live, do not leave the place at the time of temptation, for wherever you go you will find that which you fled from there before you. But stay until the temptation is past, that your departure may not cause offence and may be done in peace, and then you will not cause any distress amongst those who dwell in the place.”19
An old man said, “Just as a tree cannot bring forth good fruit if it is always being transplanted, so the monk who is always going from one place to another is not able to bring forth virtue.”20
A monk could become easily discouraged from ascetic praxis by the presence of lingering thoughts, especially those related to the life they had left behind in “the inhabited world.” Unless these passions were redirected toward God’s desires for the monk, spiritual transformation would not be possible. In this intense aspect of spiritual warfare, the aromas and abbas learned that wicked thoughts or opportunities can be neutralized by delaying the time from the thought to its being put into action. According to Abba Poemen this delay takes place through patient endurance.
It is like having a chest full of clothes, if one leaves them in disorder they are spoiled in the course of time. It is the same with thoughts. If we do not do anything about them, in time they are spoiled, that is to say, they disintegrate…. If someone shuts a snake and a scorpion up in a bottle, in time they will be completely destroyed. So it is with evil thoughts: they are suggested by the demons; they disappear through patience.21
~David G.R. Keller, Oasis of Wisdom: The Worlds of the Desert Fathers and Mothers
16 Ibid., Ammonas 6, 120D-121A. Quoted in Ramfos, Pelican, 43.
17 Ibid., Ammonas 5, 120CD. Quoted in Ramfos, Pelican, 41.
18 Ward, Sayings, Agathon 15, 22.
19 Ward, Wisdom, 23.
20 Ibid., 24.
21 Ward, Sayings, Poemen 20, 21, 169-70.
