February 2005

John 1:2-5 (King James Version)

There is something that happens to just about every preacher as Sunday approaches and that Sunday's sermon topic becomes more and more the focus of attention. It seems as if God is testing the preacher in the subject at hand by saying, "How are you doing in that area?" For instance, If I'm going to preach a sermon on forgiveness, invariably some forgiveness issue which I have been avoiding rears its ugly head. The message is: Arthur, deal with it. On occasion when I'm going to preach a sermon on faith, and I want to have a really strong sermon, a rip-roaring sermon, on faith, I'll be plagued and harassed with doubt, and I won't be sure of anything.

Today's subject is patience. Needless to say, I have had a very interesting week, when my patience has been tested. I am not as far along as I thought.

I think one of the best laboratories for testing one's patience is waiting for an elevator. We all know the elevator is set for a particular speed, and that fretting impatiently is not going to influence its motion. And I know just to press the button once, but if nobody's around I might keep pressing it until the elevator comes. It is interesting to see what other people do, pressing the button over and over, and then when they're on the elevator pressing the Close Door button. For what? To save a split second?

Another area that tests us is traffic. In a traffic jam there isn't a thing we can do. For instance, the other day I had planned to walk to the office, but I waited too long to leave and had to catch a taxi instead. The traffic was at a crawl and, although the taxi driver was doing everything he could, I began to churn inside, as if my agitation would make the traffic clear away. My lesson for the day came moments after I got out of the taxi. As you may know, on the Fifth Avenue entrance to the church there is a big signboard that lists the preacher and sermon title for the next Sunday. I see it many times a week as I pass by, but as I saw it this day I had a different perspective. As I walked by, I looked up and saw this: Dr. Caliandro. "PATIENCE". I found myself saluting and saying, "Yes, Sir!"

A number of years ago I visited a man in the hospital. He was in his middle forties, a very aggressive, successful businessman who had had a major heart attack. While I was there, a doctor came in, and the patient began to complain, "I've got to get out of here, I've got work to do," trying to press the doctor to cut the treatment so he could get out and attend to business. He died two days later. His death certificate surely had as the cause of death some kind of heart attack, but it should have said: Cause of death -- impatience.

I am going to talk about patience, and how we can increase our store of it. We really need to start with ourselves -- and I say this because most of us are not very good at being patient. But patience is something you can achieve. One way to start is to think about the person in your life who has been the most patient with you. Experience the good feeling of that person's patient ways. Try to emulate that person.

Another step to take is to consider being kind to yourself. Remember what Saint Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians: Love is patient; love is kind. That means kindness to self, too! Easy does it. One step at a time. When you are in a situation where impatience begins to take control, stand back for a moment and study the rhythm of the world that you are in, the rhythm of the universe, if you will. Get a sense of the pace of the energy field around you, and then get in sync with that pace. In other words, try to be fully present in the moment.

I'm going to frame what I just said with a profound statement from the New Testament, the Book of James, the King James translation, which is the only version that states it exactly this way: Let patience have her perfect work. Patience is a major ingredient in each person's growth. If we give patience the opportunity to do its work, we will arrive, through a slower, subtler process, at a much more profound place than we would if we rushed through it.

I had a great object lesson in patience many years ago. At that time I had a little boat I really loved. I was like a little kid with that boat. On the last trip of the summer I would go to all my favorite places, and often I would cry because I knew I would not be in that boat again for many months. In January I would start counting the weeks, and later in the spring, the days. So here it was, mid May, and I drove to Maine to get the boat in the water.

That year I stored the boat in a small boatyard on the Royal River, about fifteen miles up the coast from Portland, because it was much less expensive than the city marinas. At 5 o'clock, before I left the marina to go to the family cottage on an island near Portland, I called my younger son to say I was leaving. Facetiously I said, "If I'm not there by 6 o'clock, call the Coast Guard."

The Royal River is very shallow, and that day the tide was low. The way one maneuvered at low tide was to stay centered between tall sticks stuck upright in the mud to define the channel. If you veered out of the channel, you were in trouble. I slowly proceeded down the river, carefully staying between the sticks, until I reached a fork in the river. I followed the sticks on the right, which was my ultimate direction. After about fifty yards suddenly there were no more sticks. By the time I realized what had happened, I was mired in the mud. Stuck! I couldn't go backward or forward.

I hoped the tide was coming in and I would be on my way shortly. But luck was not with me; the tide was going out. I knew I would be there for hours. There was nobody around, and no one could have helped me anyway. Since I was not in any danger, I decided to do something that surprised me: "Arthur, you're going to be here for a long time. Don't get impatient, don't fret and don't complain." I would do three things. First, I would calm myself. Then, I would pray. And I would just plain think and let myself be. One of the difficulties that I still have today is just being, without having to be somewhere.

So I started that process, and began to feel better. I sat there taking in my environment. It was unusually warm for the middle of May in Maine. Hours passed, and I sat. Then, at about 7:30, I noticed in the far distance a flashing light on a boat. Somebody was waving at me. It was the Coast Guard. Thank God my son had taken my joking remark seriously and had called them. By 9:15 there was enough water under me and I could begin to make my way out. The Coast Guard boat waited for me, and led me to my destination.

That was an extraordinary experience, because I was in a situation where I had no control over anything around me. If I had tried to make something happen, I would have made things worse. If I had tried to force the issue, I would have made things more complicated. The only control I had was over the way I handled myself. I just had to let it be, "let patience do her perfect work." Once I had turned my attention from constantly doing--often while thinking of the next thing to do--and had tuned in to the silence around me and the spaciousness of nothing happening, I found that the process of patience spoke to me in a more powerful way than ever before.

This was a great lesson for me. There are times with each of us when life comes to a standstill. It comes to a roaring cessation of everything, and we can't do a thing about it. When that happens, if we try to fool with it, try to manipulate it, try to make things happen, we make things worse. We must allow those wonderful, mysterious processes of life to do their work. So often it's the spirit of God that is at work on our behalf; we can trust it.

How many times have I seen romantic relationships never have a chance to really get started because either one or both persons are so excited and so enamored with what's going on that mentally, physically and emotionally they move too fast and everything collapses. A couple of years ago a woman of this congregation said to me, "I met somebody wonderful. Arthur, I'm going to go slowly with this one." And she did. Today they have an exceptional relationship.

Let patience do her work. Allow things to be. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Easy does it, one step at a time. Get in sync with the rhythm of the world you are living in. How many times, in business, for instance, when we want to get ahead, when we want to get a raise, we rush it, going too fast for the situation, and we ruin our chances.

Many times when I talk about patience, I'll lean over and take a flower out of the arrangement in front of the chancel. Here's a rose. It's perfect isn't it? You know what a flower needs? The right soil, some water and sunshine, and air. And it needs its own time. If it doesn't have any of these ingredients, there won't be a rose. If we try to accelerate the growth of this perfect fruition of a process, we will destroy it. But when a rose has its time, it grows into fullness. I have seen beautiful flowers grow out of a crack in a sidewalk. In the state of Maine, which is mostly ledge, there are numerous examples of tall pine trees that come out sideways in an opening in the ledge and go way up to the sky. Slowly, patiently, persistently, in their own time, they grow.

There's a story I love about an artist creating a mosaic in a great cathedral in Italy. Before him was a table with thousands of pieces of ceramic. In front of him was the vast wall that would some day be covered with the mosaic. A tourist watching him asked, "Don't you get impatient, knowing how much you have to do? Don't you wonder if you'll ever get it all done?"

The artist very wisely replied, "You know, I don't. Every day I draw a circle indicating what I can do in that day, and I stay within that circle. I do the same thing the next day and the next day, and one day it will be complete."

When my sons were 12 and 14 years old, we went on a camping trip in the West. One night we were camped in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming and set up our tents at the edge of Leigh Lake, one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen. The next morning I woke up at sunrise and sat on a log a few feet from the lake. Nobody else was up yet anywhere, except for a chipmunk nibbling on something near the ashes of the fire we had made to cook supper and flocks of birds wheeling in the sky. Before me lay the glorious lake circled by peaks of the Grand Tetons.

For awhile I looked about me, taking it all in. Then I looked down and saw a solitary ant walking about on the sand at my feet. I had never paid much attention to ants before, but I was aware the Bible makes respectful reference to the ant, and so I watched him walk about. Then I thought I would test his resourcefulness, and I made a hill of dirt--a mountain to him--to see what he would do. He walked all the way up, then down the other side. I dug a deep valley and he descended into its depths and then climbed up the other side. When I put a stone in his way he kept falling off as he tried to climb it, and then starting over again. The same with a twig--he struggled repeatedly until he mastered it.

This little creature facing challenging tests was teaching me. When an obstacle was placed before him, what did that little phenomenon do? He patiently kept moving forward. At no point did he declare failure. He never went to the head of the ant colony to complain of unfairness. He didn't whine. Life, in the day of an ant, is facing obstacles and challenges and patiently persisting toward his destination.

Patience. Let patience have her perfect work. When we're waiting for an elevator, when we're in traffic, when our relationship is not going well, if we get nervous, anxious, angry, frustrated, we will make a bigger mess. We injure the process of our fulfillment.

So please, be patient with yourself, knowing how patient God is with you. Let us pray.

Patience, Lord -- it is a big word, a big idea. We need Your help. We surrender to You our impatience, and invite You to help us learn patience. AMEN