Let nothing frighten you.
All things will pass away.
God never changes;
Patience obtains all things,
Whoever has God lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
Amen.”
St Teresa of Avila
This prayer has become something of a mantra for me during lockdown. Today I want to share something of how it has helped me, in the hope that it may be of help to you too.
Teresa knew all about fear, impermanence, patience and reliance on God alone. She was born in 1515 in Spain. She lost her mother at the age of 11 and had a spiritual crisis in her teenage years, before entering a Carmelite convent at the age of 20. She subsequently endured a long period of serious illness and suffered persecution from members of her own order for trying to reform it. Eventually her efforts succeeded. She was given papal permission to establish several new convents and her reforms were later taken up by the Carmelite Order. Through her main work, 'The Interior Castle' she became one of the most influential and best loved Catholic saints of all time. Her inspiring story is reflected in this, her best known prayer.
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
Five hundred years later and we still live in a world that can be disturbing and frightening. There are many things about the current crisis that we may react to with fear. Over the last couple of months I have learned to allow myself to feel unsettled and afraid, but when I start to become overwhelmed by those feelings, to remember that all things are passing away, including my own fear.
All things will pass away
The impermanence of life can be one of its most difficult lessons. We often fear change and try to hold onto the way things are, but when I truly accept that all things pass away, I can start to let go of my attachment.
God never changes
And yet, underneath all the tumult and chaos, perhaps we may glimpse something constant. We may not all express it in the language of 'God never changes,' but nevertheless we may have a sense that there is something that roots and grounds and anchors us. Perhaps we might call this the Eternal Source, the Spirit of Life or simply Love. When I use the word 'God' to me it refers not to an old man in the sky, but to 'the ground of all being.'
Patience obtains all things
This has perhaps been the most important lesson of the lockdown for me – patience is the key to everything.
When I was a child, 'patience is a virtue' was something my mother would say to chide me – for example, if I ran off with a fairy cake straight from the oven and burnt my mouth, she would say, 'patience is a virtue!' So I grew up feeling quite resentful towards patience – it was something I ought to have, but didn't. I would often find myself sneaking a peak at the last page of a book, because I was impatient to know how the story ended. And I have never been happy with queueing, although I am beginning to get used to it now!
But there is more to patience than just waiting. The Cambridge English Dictionary definition of patience is, “the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed.”
The Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle conceived the idea that a virtue is the golden mean or the middle ground between two extremes or vices. For the waiting aspect of patience, patience is the ability to wait until things are right, between the extremes of apathy and impetuousness. But there is a subtler aspect to patience, which relates to endurance and acceptance, hinted at in the dictionary definition, whose extremes are indifference and anger. Hildegard of Bingen, in her work Liber Vitae Meritorium (the Book of the Rewards of Life), contrasted the virtue of patience with the vice of anger.
Viewed in this light, patience becomes an acknowledgement that everything, both good fortune and misfortune, come from the same source. As such, both can be equally valuable learning experiences. Indeed, we often we grow more through perseverance in times of discomfort and struggle than we do in times of ease.
Patience isn't something encouraged by consumer culture – we are encouraged to go after and get what we want now – buy now, pay later. We are encouraged to think that purchasing more and more things will solve all our problems. It is hard to stay with the discomfort and the difficulties, to be present to whatever is.
The coronavirus crisis is calling us all to patience – to be patient with ourselves and with others – to be kind, understanding, compassionate and forgiving to ourselves and others.
I am very grateful for the patience of others – for example, for the kindness and understanding shown in our Unitarian community as we muddle our way through new technology and new ways to keep our connections going. I am very grateful that my family and I have been able to be patient with each other as we adjust to the new realities of lockdown at different paces. I am very grateful for the patience of my college tutors and fellow students as we work out how to adjust our ministry training programme to our altered circumstances. And I grateful that I am learning to be patient with myself – to accept that my moods and my energy levels fluctuate more than ever, and that some days are down days and some days are up days.
Our patience may be put to the test in the days to come. We don't know how long our lives are going to be disturbed and disrupted by coronavirus. Some organisations are already making plans to stay 'virtual' in the long term. For example, the University of Cambridge is planning for all its lectures to be delivered online for the whole of the 2020/21 academic year.
I read recently that the UUA (Unitarians Universalist Association, in the US) are advising their member congregations to prepare for another year of gathering online rather than face-to-face. Now our situation in the UK may not be exactly the same, but it is becoming clear that the virus isn't going to go away any time soon.
The following day I read that the UK government had announced a 'Places of Worship taskforce', including leading representatives of our major faiths, to develop guidelines for COVID-19 secure use of our buildings for worship. Places of worship will be part of the 'phase 3' reopening of public gathering places, which will not before 4 July at the very earliest.
We do not know what will happen here between now and then, but it may well be much later than July before any place of worship is fully open again and before we feel it is safe to start gathering in person in our church building. A return to worship is likely to be phased, and subject to vigorous risk assessments, and social distancing and hygiene measures. Even social distanced singing spreads the virus so we won't be able to sing hymns in the way we were used to for some time.
And even when we are in a position to hold services in the building again, there will be some people who will not be able to join us as they need to keep shielding until such time as a vaccine is available, and we will need to consider carefully how to include those people in the services we offer.
And so we will need to continue cultivating patience in all its forms in the days to come as we wait to see what shape our lives will take after lockdown. Luckily, like all virtues, patience can be cultivated with practice – all it takes is patience!
Even writing this has been an exercise in patience for me – it took a long time for it to reveal itself in its final form to me. Which brings me to the next aspects of patience – trust and faith.
Sometimes we may feel that God, or Fate or the Meaning of Life, is capricious and elusive. We don't often understand the lesson we are learning until it is over. But if we let dark be dark, then the light will be revealed to us in the fullness of time.
Whoever has God lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
We may translate 'God alone suffices' as 'Good' or 'Love' alone suffices. It is our faith in whatever we consider sacred, of ultimate concern, that sustains us. Our spiritual treasures are worth more than all the material things we may accumulate. A big lesson for me during this crisis has been how few of the material things I own I actually need. It is my faith in the ultimate goodness of God / Eternal Source / Ground of all Being, and the Love that holds us together, that sustains me.
St Hildegard of Bingen's character, Patience, from her musical play, Ordo Virtuum (Order of the Virtues) says,
“I am the pillar that can never be made to yield, as my foundation is in God.”
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