Music Dear friends,
Welcome to this meditation designed to help us with the virtue of patience.
I hope you find some benefit from it.
Can we begin by bringing ourselves into the present moment?
Closing our eyes,
Noticing our presence right here and right now.
Taking a deep breath in and being thankful for our existence here today.
Coming to a standstill,
A complete standstill and just letting things be.
Let's enjoy these few moments of quiet.
If we do feel any worries,
Any tension,
Just take a deep breath in.
Hold for a second or two and let it out with a big sigh.
Remember,
This too will pass.
These are your free moments,
A chance to stop and take stock.
Let's pause for one minute,
60 seconds of relaxation to begin.
Music Welcome back.
We begin today with words from Robert H.
Schuller.
Never cut a tree down in the wintertime.
Never make a negative decision in the low time.
Never make your most important decisions when you are in your most important time.
Make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods.
Wait.
Be patient.
The storm will pass.
The spring will come.
I thought that today we would reflect on the theme of patience and encourage ourselves to apply patience in the time ahead.
So why this subject and why today?
Because we need patience to deal with the changes we are facing the world over today.
Let's just think about where we have been and where we are just now.
Back in February 2020 all our individual lives were sailing along.
We may have had good days and bad days,
But life was predictable.
And taking the rough with the smooth,
Most of the time we managed to get by reasonably happily.
We had our routines and our plans,
Our work and our leisure activities,
Coming and going as we wished.
Holiday plans,
Events in our diaries,
Weddings and celebrations,
All the usual things of life.
And then in March the talk of a distant virus,
The sound of distant drums.
We heard about it,
But it seemed far away,
Remote.
And what's this business of locking down a city?
So extreme.
But then it came closer to home and on a worrying scale.
And then it came here,
Right here among us,
Wherever we were,
The world over.
Next we had our own lockdowns,
Instructions to stay put,
Only essential shops and services open.
Wear a mask.
We learned a new expression,
Social distancing.
Work from home.
Keep within 2km,
Then 5,
Then 20.
It was a very strange world we woke up to in March.
But in the last little while we have adapted to the new situation.
Maybe not happily,
Because it isn't normal.
But in a certain sense we gained a new feeling of separateness and maybe a little independence of sorts.
Not what you could call a welcome independence.
New,
But not really good,
Not sustainable.
But we became familiar with an unprecedented sense of autonomy,
Even though it was a lonely type of freedom.
Working from home under our own steam.
Concentrating on getting a job done rather than having to interact with people in person.
Although it was a working day and working time,
Even so it seemed a little like spending time in a hermitage.
Few people venturing to disturb us.
That was an advantage.
Everyone isolating,
But we know that isolation is not good for us.
We were each our own bosses in a sense,
And you realised that in a certain way you could get to like that feeling.
It wasn't quite independence,
But we got to enjoy a certain autonomy.
And everyone so helpful to everyone else,
Because we were all facing this common threat together.
Let's pause for another minute.
Maybe to recall those who have helped us through the early days of the coronavirus crisis.
And also to recall the people who have died or been bereaved.
60 seconds.
30 seconds.
Welcome back.
But now things are beginning to reopen,
Or are they?
Slowly and cautiously.
And we find our autonomous existence,
For all its faults,
Is no more.
This return to half normality will take getting used to,
And it will need patience.
We are not reopening to the easy going ways we were used to.
Now we have to get back to relating to people,
But in a socially distanced world.
And we don't have the everyday supports of old.
We are being reintroduced to having to comply with many of the old rules,
But we've only regained some,
Not all of the old benefits.
Now we find ourselves in closer contact with people.
Surely that's good,
It's more healthy,
But what about renewed contact with people we find difficult?
What about people being able to drop by and disturb us if we are at work?
Didn't we get on fine when we were uninterrupted?
These conflicting thoughts going through our heads.
Back in touch with and relating to family members we haven't met in person for months.
The easy going ones,
That's great.
But what about the more challenging family members?
Seeing them all at once could be a bit like getting ready for Christmas dinner with all its tensions.
And meeting in person with work colleagues,
Some having their own issues,
All because they too have to adjust to this new reality.
And meanwhile we are losing holidays,
People losing money,
Young people losing their normal social activities and having lost their social interactions for months now.
That's more than a bit unnatural for young people who want to get out and about and meet other people.
Some of us could be meeting face to face with supervisors or bosses for the first time in months.
Strange as it may seem,
Some of us could find ourselves wishing again for what was once that awful isolation.
We might remember splendid isolation as being good.
So we can easily see from all this why we need patience.
And there's even more.
We don't have the easy going ways of getting out and about.
These were escapes that helped us to make torrid decisions,
Bearable in the past.
The breaks from routine that we all enjoyed.
Some examples.
Driving into our city's centres.
It was never pleasant,
But now it's more difficult.
More space has been allocated to cyclists,
Pedestrians and outdoor activities.
Tables and chairs on the streets,
That sort of thing.
All very good.
But then the question arises,
How do you get there?
By bus,
By train,
A tram?
The capacity there has been reduced to maintain social distancing.
And how can you social distance in a taxi,
Where the driver's last job may have been picking someone up at the airport?
So we wonder,
Is all this safe?
And as for entertainment,
To go to a pub or a restaurant you may need an appointment,
That might be hard to get,
And then the experience is all very rigid and confined,
Not like it was before.
And when it comes to shopping,
We have to become familiar with queues,
Sanitizers,
Screens and masks,
And one-way systems,
Obeying instructions laid out on the floor.
Keep your distance and don't touch something you're not going to buy.
All this sort of thing.
And in the middle of all this,
The news reports of the virus popping up in places where it was thought to have been under control.
So as we come out of lockdown,
We hear of places going back into it.
All this is something which is worrying,
Trying and challenging our patients as never before.
So what now?
How to manage this change of routine?
It's only natural that we feel disorientated and maybe frustrated.
This right now feels like a strange new world.
So as we venture into it,
We need to prepare ourselves by making a definite decision to be patient and easy with ourselves.
Easy with ourselves and others.
Not thinking too much of the day when things will be as casual as they were.
Because that day looks like it could be quite a while off.
And that too is a disconcerting thought.
We have to learn to adapt,
Enjoy,
By being patient and remembering that this too will pass.
And we have to remember that life is passing day by day whether we enjoy it or not.
So let's not damage it or lose it by wasting our time complaining and wishing things were different.
They are what they are.
And we mustn't let our own frustration make it more difficult for the people around us.
In other words,
We have to be patient.
We need to appreciate even more all the good things that we have going for us.
So where can we learn lessons in patience?
Maybe we should look at nature and follow its example.
Think of a seed being sown.
It requires soil,
Water,
Light,
Heat and above all,
Time.
No amount of manipulation,
Squeezing,
Checking,
Prodding is going to help.
This interference will do the opposite.
It will destroy the plant.
The plant needs time.
Another example,
Caterpillars turning into butterflies.
Notice how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.
The slow process.
There is no point in trying to help this process along.
If you see the chrysalis beginning to open and you help it along,
Or try to help it along,
The butterfly will die.
So in these strange times and in the time ahead,
When we are faced with the difficulties that come from having to adjust to a new normal,
As they call it,
Let's try to be patient,
Helpful and not cause trouble for ourselves and for others.
Let us imitate nature and learn to be patient just like nature.
In nature,
Day follows night.
Spring follows winter.
Things move on patiently in their own time.
There is no way to short circuit nature.
Nature teaches us a lesson.
When we want things to move forward more quickly,
Let us look at nature to remind us all will be fine in its own time.
A closing quote from Carl Jung.
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness,
And the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
It's far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
Words of Carl Jung.
So take care of one another.
Keep safe and keep the light of patience burning and helping to show us the way.
Namaste.
